Shadow's Shroud
by Kit Chan76
Summary: Follow-up to Call of Shadows. A year after the Arbiter's defeat the troopers have returned to normal living. But when Jun begins acting strangely they cannot be sure if it is a relapse into old habits or if something more sinister is at play.
1. Chapter 1

NOTES: Here we go again! To those new to this particular line of stories I'm writing this so that you don't necessarily have to read all of CoS to understand what's going on, there are bits of summary and other information to fill in gaps. To those returning, welcome back! I'll be working diligently to post a chapter each week (and I've got a couple backlogged right now so if I fall behind it doesn't mean you have to!). Please read, review, and enjoy. Remember, I take constructive criticism quite seriously, and any suggestions, questions, or comments you have are more than welcome.

Chapter 1:

It was not as though Nasté was not expecting the knock at her front door but it startled her all same when it finally came. Having spent her day cooped up in her office working diligently to input a hundred pages of information into her anthropological database she had lost all concept of time and rushed through her house toward the foyer. She shot a glance at the clock hanging beside her office door as she passed; it was exactly six o'clock.

Two more knocks rang against the door as she made her way downstairs and as she swung the door wide she could see that a third had been forthcoming. Toma stood in the doorway with his fist poised to knock again and wore an expression of complete bafflement.

"It was locked," Toma said brightly, lowered his hand, and shifted the bag that he carried on his shoulder to accommodate locking Nasté in a warm embrace. "We were beginning to worry that you weren't home."

We? Nasté thought. But when Toma let her go she understood his meaning exactly. Behind him stood Ryo, dressed in red and black sweats and looking mildly put off. Nasté did not have to ask why he was upset. She knew exactly what had happened the moment she registered that two troopers were at her door instead of one.

"He double booked you again," she said with disappointment as she motioned for the two men to enter.

"Six o'clock on Thursday April fourth," Toma said automatically. "He said he had exams next week and need some help, I cleared my whole weekend."

Ryo nodded and followed Toma inside, stopping just inside the door to plant a firm kiss on Nasté's cheek before continuing toward the living room. "And I don't need to tell you that Thursdays—"

"Are training days," Nasté said with a blush. "I know."

She followed her guests into the sitting room where Toma had already let his bag fall to the floor where it landed with a loud thud, exposing a dozen dictionary sized textbooks that must have weighed fifty pounds. He dropped into one of the well-worn armchairs, kicked off his shoes, and reclined immediately, watching with some amusement as Ryo and Nasté situated themselves on the sofa opposite.

He was not net used to the idea that Ryo and Nasté were tentatively together, a recent development that had no doubt come as a result of a good deal of mockery and taunting. After all, Ryo spent at least three hours a week alone with Jun, the much younger and less modest of the samurai troopers, who presently acted as Nasté's housemate and was not afraid to call things as he saw them.

"So where is our delinquent tonight?" Toma said with a smirk. "Running late again?"

Nasté looked meekly at the floor. "I'm afraid to say he won't be home until at least two in the morning."

Ryo and Toma exchanged dark looks and Nasté understood at once what they were thinking.

"No, no," she said. "He's keeping to my rules flawlessly as usual. Someone called in sick to work this evening so he offered to work a double shift. Eight to four then four to midnight, the poor kid is going to be an exhausted mess tomorrow."

Toma and Ryo visibly relaxed. It had been just over a year since Jun had moved into Nasté's home and they were sill surprised that he managed to live with the rules that Nasté had set forth as a condition of his living there. He had a strict curfew of ten o'clock at night unless he had explicit permission from Nasté to be out later, and if he was ever caught in a place where he did not belong he would be put out on the spot.

But Jun's continued good behavior was not wholly unexpected. The incentive to stay in Nasté's good favor was incredibly high; she had arranged a full tuition scholarship and a steady job at Keio University Teaching Hospital, and she provided him with free room and board on top of it all. Furthermore, Jun had come a long way since beginning his special work study program and seemed more responsible and ambitious now than he had ever seemed before. He scheduled Ryo at least once a week for personal training with his armor, figuring that the dual wielding wildfire would be the best coach for his own twin war glaives, and he often invited Toma for hours long sessions of mind numbingly intense study. Combined with the frequent recreational outings he made with the other troopers and his twelve or fourteen hour days at school and work it was not surprising that Jun had no free time to find trouble.

"I don't know how he does it," Toma mused. "I can barely bring myself to focus for an hour at a time. I can't fathom a sixteen hour shift."

Nasté smiled. "Well you don't get to see him as often as I do and I'll guarantee you that his schedule is as exhausting for him as you think it is, maybe even more. I don't think a single day has gone by in the last three weeks where I haven't caught him asleep on his textbooks or at his dinner. He lays his head down for two seconds and he's out like a light."

"It sounds like he needs a new schedule," Ryo said.

"Haru and I are working on relaxing it a bit, but I doubt it would make any difference to Jun," Nasté said. She referred to Hatsuharu Atsuko, the dean of medicine at Keio University who also acted as Jun's advisor. He was the man who had personally arranged Jun's work study. "He turned twenty last year and wouldn't so much as take a phone call. Haru gave him the night off and he spent the whole time reviewing his diagnostics textbook."

"We know," Toma said dejectedly. "The five of us had planned to take him out."

Nasté grinned as she recalled that evening. She had answered almost two dozen phone calls from classmates and coworkers before the troopers had phoned and Jun would not so much as think of abandoning his textbook. That night was the first time that she realized how much of an impact Jun was making on the lives of everyone he knew and how much effort he was putting in to his studies.

But she couldn't help but think that he might be overworking himself.

"Well, I suppose we'll have to make do without him for the evening," Ryo said.

Nasté and Toma nodded their agreement and it seemed that none of the three of them were disappointed by the prospect of a quiet night in. They spent their evening talking quietly and catching up on recent events. By eight o'clock they had eaten dinner and by eleven they had all retired to sleep.

At twelve thirty the phone rang.

Ryo woke first, bleary eyed and confused by the sudden noise, and he stumbled into Nasté's study to answer the call. He could not be sure if he had even uttered some sleepy variation of 'hello' before Jun began talking, his voice quick and breathless.

"Nasté, something came up and I won't be home—"

"You skipped out on PT," Ryo said as his sense fully returned, and Jun's voice died on the other end. "And you dragged Toma all the way up here for nothing."

Jun sounded flustered and upset as he began stammering a reply. "Look, I'm sorry but I forgot that it was Thursday. I really need to talk to Nasté, I'm busy and I don't have a lot of time."

When Ryo looked to the door Nasté and Toma stood in the way looking confused. Nasté tightened her dressing gown around her waist, approached Ryo thoughtfully, and extended her hand to take the receiver while Toma leaned with a loud yawn against the jamb.

Ryo handed Nasté the phone with little resistance and joined Toma near the door. The troopers watched with interest as Nasté sat down at her desk as if she was taking a business call.

"Jun," she said, "is everything all right?"

She could practically hear him shaking his head. "No," he replied. "There was a freak accident at Tokyo Station and they're admitting people by the busload. I won't be home," he paused and Nasté could hear an irate woman scolding Jun in the background noise. "I was due to assist Atsuko-sensei in surgery five minutes ago, I have to go. Turn on the news."

Nasté did not seem surprised when Jun hung up on her and ignored the expectant looks that Toma and Ryo shot her way. Instead she spun in her chair, flipped on her office television, and beckoned the two troopers over. They crowded around the screen and gaped at the image that it showed.

A camera shot footage from a helicopter which flew above a mess of fiery rubble in downtown Tokyo. They could see a hundred sets of flashing lights darting in and out of the frame as emergency vehicles came and left, could see first responders in their bright plastic coats milling about the destruction like a colony of ants, and they could see the crumpled remains of at least one Shinkansen train, its cars folded and twisted on top of each other in a massive mangled wreck.

"Oh my," Nasté gasped and she turned on the volume.

"An explosion rocked Tokyo Station this evening around eleven thirty, collapsing most of the infrastructure in a kilometer radius. At least one hundred are confirmed dead and hundreds more are seriously injured. Numbers of the dead and wounded are expected to rise. Patients are presently spread between Jikei University Hospital and Keio University Hospital. Authorities request that concerned persons stay clear of these areas until further notice due to the high volume of patients."

Nasté, Toma, and Ryo exchanged worried glances.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Ryo said quietly and Toma signaled his agreement with a curt nod.

Ϫ

The operating room was cool and quiet and Jun felt more at ease now than he had since six the previous morning. Presently he leaned over a middle aged man whose body had been left badly mangled but repairable in one of the Shinkansen crashes, and watched with morbid interest as a bloody mass of muscles twisted and pulsed under the pressure of his forceps.

He felt proud to be in that room even if he was merely there for basic assistance. He had been one of six students hand-picked by Hatsuharu Atsuko to help in his procedures and after five hours of intense focus and six patients lost on the table he was the only one remaining. The rest had given up, had buckled under the pressure, and most fled the room in tears or rage the moment a patient flat lined.

But Jun held fast, his hands steady and his focus sharp, absorbing as much practical knowledge as he could. This zone of composed consideration was exactly where he wanted to be, where the only noise to be heard was the classical piano drifting out of wall-mounted silver speakers and the only people he had to answer to were right in front of him.

He shot a glance at Atsuko and felt a shock of admiration. There was something inspiring about this man that Jun had never been able to articulate. His brow was endlessly wrinkled with concentration and his steely gray eyes never deviated from his work. He was as professional a surgeon as Jun had ever met and any time he thought of his own position as Atsuko's star pupil he swelled with pride. This man had saved Jun's life and now, almost seven years later, had taken Jun under his wing with outstanding results.

"Extracting shard six from left biceps," Atsuko said firmly as he pointed at a dark jagged spot on the radiograph mounted and lit above the patient's head. With his other hand he retrieved a pair of thumb forceps from his tray and shot a quick glance at Jun. "Spread."

"Yes, sir," Jun replied automatically and moved his right hand to the tray at his side, his fingers gripping a cold pair of retractors as by instinct.

There were five others in the room but it felt to Jun that he and Atsuko were working alone. He applied the retractors and Atsuko pried a sharp metal shard from the unconscious man's arm. And as he moved the debris over the discard bin he looked at Jun again before letting the metal fall with a clink.

"How are you holding up?" he asked as he regarded the radiograph again.

"I'm fine, sir," Jun replied humbly, though as he spoke he worked hard to stifle a yawn behind his pleated mask.

"No more double shifts this week, do you understand me?" said Atsuko and Jun nodded. Then after another deep breath he continued as if the aside had never occurred. "Extracting shard seven from left brachialis."

This was why Jun loved his work so sincerely. Atsuko treated him as both a colleague and a pupil, and once in a great while made comments that sounded in some way fatherly. But he did so in a way that remained always respectful; with enough firmness to make his point clear but a friendliness that allowed the conversation to move immediately back to business. It was in these moments that Jun was reminded how much Atsuko had invested in him both personally and professionally.

So it went for another hour before the middle aged man on the steel table was wheeled away, the team dressed in new sterile gowns and scrubbed for the seventh time, and the patient changed to an elderly woman whose left leg clung to her body by a thread. Hours later the process repeated and the old woman was replaced by a man no older than Jun who Atsuko said had no business even being there.

That boy bled out within fifteen minutes and the next patient died in a similar fashion.

At four in the morning the room remained empty for a long and uncomfortable stretch. Having had only enough time between procedures to sterilize and scrub made the fifteen minute wait for the next patient feel like an eternity. But at last the door opened and a distraught young nurse pushing a gurney strode quickly into the room.

"I apologize for the delay, sir. She was a last minute admission and had to be moved to the front of the line."

Atsuko gave a kind of grunt in reply. "Get her on the table," he said to no one in particular and then looked directly at the nurse. "How long?"

"She was admitted an hour ago," the nurse said, and Atsuko turned away in disgust.

The minute Atsuko's back was to her the nurse hurried from the room. He admired the small figure lying prone on the table and called out in what could have been an angry voice. "Jun!"

Jun jumped. He had been seated in a corner of the room in the only moment he had been off his feet all day, but when he heard his name he stood and rushed to the table where Atsuko looked at him so gravely that he felt a chill.

"Do you need a break?"

Jun was startled by the question. It seemed strange to be asked such a question after taking the time and effort to redress for the procedure. "Excuse me?"

"I'm asking if you are absolutely sure that you want to be in this room."

"Of course I am," Jun replied. He was working hard not to sound indignant.

Atsuko nodded and retrieved a chart from the end of the steel table. He nodded to a woman standing near the head of the unconscious patient and she obediently began unwrapping the head from its cover of bulky bandages. Then he read monotonously from the chart.

"Akiko Nagano," he stated flatly. "Age eight, admitted with severe trauma to the head. Suspected hemorrhaging of the brain and additional internal abdominal bleeds."

Jun gaped at the girl whose face—or what was left of it—had now been completely exposed and his whole body went numb. Her shaved head was split from ear to ear and her mouth hung open looking as though she had suffered a severe stroke. Her face and chest were burned and blistered and for the first time since beginning his program months ago Jun felt nauseous and dizzy at the sight.

As the procedure began he could hear only vaguely Atsuko's heated complaint that this girl should have been in the room hours ago. He barely registered the sharp commands that he was issued and hardly saw the operation as it progressed. His body worked automatically while his mind raced with thoughts about the complete stranger hovering near death before him.

She looked peaceful under the plastic mask that was pressed firmly to her nose and mouth, even in her disfigurement. He imagined that she had been pretty and smart and popular at school, as full of spirit and blind ambition as he had been at that age. He imagined that her eyes would open and sparkle with the excitement of life reclaimed. His chest swelled with hope at the same time as a hard lump of fear caught in his throat.

He stared at her open abdomen for what felt like hours though in his fatigue he could not be certain how long had actually passed. He worked as he always did, his face set in stone while his unwavering hands responded expertly to orders from above, but inside his mind and heart were raging. He could not believe how unfair life was being to this poor young girl. He could not fathom what her parents must have been thinking. He felt angry and terrified and somehow confused. He felt as though he should not be in the room at all.

He saw sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and knew that the remaining members of the staff were rushing frantically about the room. Then he felt a hand grasp his shoulder to wrench him roughly away from the table and the sudden movement snapped his mind back to reality.

A flat tone sounded loud above the piano and a number of machines began to beep tones of warning. Jun shot a glance at the monitor beside the table and read its output without recognizing what he was doing, and then he turned and watched from afar as the body jumped violently about in slow and even intervals. He looked at the strange woman who held his shoulders and felt his eyes widen in shock and disbelief.

"That's it," said Atsuko hotly from across the room. "No more for now. Everyone take a break, I'm calling a meeting with my heads of staff to figure out what part of 'emergency triage' they don't comprehend."

With Atsuko's words ringing of finality and suppressed rage the team filed silently into the preparation room where they disrobed and went their separate ways without so much as exchanging looks. It was seven thirty in the morning and after spending the night in a cramped and tense space none of them expected to talk. None of them wanted to talk.

Jun watched them depart into the chaos outside of the operating room and understood that their work was far from ending. Patients stood in queue outside and he could hear their frantic yells as they carried through the open door. So he hung back in the room, focused on watching Atsuko's back as he filled out basic post-procedure paperwork, and tried not to stare at the dead girl lying on the table.

"I meant you as well, Jun," said Atsuko firmly and without turning.

But Jun could not bring himself to move. His stomach tingled and his skin crawled and no matter how hard he tried he could not force out the words that he wanted to say. Rather, a quiet and uncertain squeak escaped his mouth and he flushed as Atsuko turned on him.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," he said at once, sounding somewhat angry. "She was dead before she got in here."

"I know," Jun stammered quietly.

Atsuko regarded Jun with some concern then and the two stood in awkward quiet for a while. Then he looked away, tired of staring at Jun's bloody gown and gloves as his fingers fidgeted, and poked at his paperwork.

"That was bad for all of us," Atsuko said. "But I do understand what you're thinking about. That's why I asked if you really wanted to stay."

"Sir?" Jun said dumbly. He was not certain that he had heard Atsuko correctly.

"That little girl was just like you were; almost identical injuries and everything. But she died and you didn't."

Jun did not know how to respond. He was not sure if that was why he felt so strange but it seemed a good enough reason as any. It was true that he had been giving no small amount of thought to how unfair life was for that girl and how if he had been only slightly less lucky he might be gone just as she was.

"How long have you been up?" said Atsuko and he sounded concerned as he watched Jun begin counting the hours on his fingers. "You know what," he continued, "don't bother. Go get something to eat and get some sleep."

"But—"

"You've done enough today. You can't save everyone by yourself, much less if you're exhausted. You're not a super hero, you know."

Jun smirked unconsciously and moved toward the exit obediently. Atsuko did not know the irony of his idiom because Jun had never mentioned that he was the bearer of a mystical armor and had played a substantial role in saving humanity only a year prior.

"Maybe not," Jun quipped as he bumped the door's automatic opening mechanism with his elbow, "but I'm pretty damned close."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Jun recognized the error of wearing solid black scrubs the moment that he exited the locker room. He looked important and stood out from the other doctors dressed in bright pink, red, and blue clothes like a sore thumb.

Under strict orders from his dean to take a much needed break he declined a dozen pleas for help as he waded through the thick crowd of people wounded in the explosion at Toyama Station. Even almost ten hours after the initial blast the hospital remained in complete chaos. Every gurney, chair, and cubicle was occupied and still more patients stood waling and bleeding out in the halls. Jun felt sick with himself every time he coldly shrugged those people away.

So now he sat alone at a booth in the hospital cafeteria staring blankly at the small side salad on the table before him and feeling strangely full. He had not eaten since the morning prior and knew that after his exhausting night spent in surgery that he should have been famished. But all the same he was not hungry. If anything he felt vaguely dizzy, a problem which he attributed solely to his lack of sleep, and his feet were mildly sore.

Despite his physical aches and pains he could not tear his mind from his last procedure. An eight year old girl had been wheeled into the room with devastating wounds to her head and she died after hours of painstaking labor. Jun was upset, not because the girl had died or because the team had spent so much time working to save her, but because he had once been in her place and found it entirely unfair that he had survived only to be forced into wielding armor for which he felt no particular connection in order to protect Japan from the untold horrors of the netherworld.

He dropped his chin onto his right hand and poked listlessly at the salad with the fork brandished in his left, so lost in his dismal thoughts that he scarcely heard a jovial cry from across the room.

"Good morning, Porkchop," said a high pitched female voice and Jun looked up in time to see its owner sit with a bounce on the bench opposite him. She grinned broadly because she could see how much Jun hated the pet name, given to him by his classmates for his immaculately toned physique and complete modesty for the subject. He thought she looked stupid sitting there and in that moment thoroughly regretted his single attempt to bed her several months prior. "Looks like we have a busy day ahead of us," she continued happily. "Salad for breakfast?"

Jun groaned his response, laid his fork down, and turned his gaze back to the tabletop. It seemed that the girl noticed his mood because when he glanced back up at her several minutes later her smile had been replaced by a worried frown that wrinkled her forehead like an old woman. Jun wondered how desperate he could have been to have tried for her.

"Double shift?" she said flatly.

"Triple."

"Atsuko let you work a triple?" she said incredulously and louder than Jun would have liked. "You've already worked what, forty hours this week, and now a triple on top of it? You're supposed to be part-time, you know."

"I'm fine, Chiharu," Jun said firmly. "I'm on break and I'm going to go sleep once I'm done eating."

"You had better be," said Chiharu. She had obviously picked up on the frustration in Jun's voice because she grasped her tray and stood up. "I guess I'll leave you to yourself. Call me later, okay? We should go out once exams are done and maybe we can blow off some steam together."

Jun held back another groan as a thousand ways to ditch her rolled through his brain. "Yeah, sure," he said, and hated himself for his inability to get rid of her for good.

Chiharu found a new seat at a table crowded with people who Jun recognized from several of his classes, though he could not have named any of them for any price. As she sat her friends shot him interested looks but turned away as soon as they realized that he was paying attention. Jun felt oddly as though he were back in his high school cafeteria where people were too afraid to let anyone know that they were interested be caught staring. He wondered if the rest of his life was going to be some variation on the theme of people trying to gape at him without his knowledge.

Before long his mind drifted back to morbid thoughts of death and children, and as he continued to poke at his food without eating it he fumbled around in his pants pocket and fidgeted with his yoroi ball. The orb, which Jun carried at all times and used to call forth his slightly unconventional armor, felt pleasantly warm and as he peeked at it in his palm its character of fortitude glowed a soft black light from its core.

He found this somewhat odd. The orb did not flare unless one of the other five samurai troopers was around and almost never radiated heat. Jun wondered if the strange behavior of his orb had been caused by the disaster at Tokyo Station and if perhaps the disaster had been caused by some malicious being. It had been a while since there had been any trouble of that kind, after all, and Jun had always worried that past enemies might hunt him down again.

Specifically, Jun worried about a youja called The Arbiter of Souls, a spirit who had caused a significant level of mayhem a year prior. The Arbiter had brought Jun out of years of solitude, years spent away from Nasté and the five troopers, by capturing the five through manipulation and deception and calling Jun to a last minute rescue for which he had been woefully underprepared. It was in that time that Jun had been forced unceremoniously into wielding what had now been dubbed kage no yoroi, the armor of shadow, and he had utilized the armor clumsily and imprecisely.

It had taken weeks for Jun to realize the full potential of his armor, that rather than a ballistic sure-kill its power rested in a summoned shade that could fight alongside the wielder of the armor and, in certain desperate situations, act as a flawless decoy. Jun had used the shadow of his armor to relentlessly mock the Arbiter and cause enough distraction to free the troopers, but he had been almost completely useless in the ensuing battle. In fact, he had been sorely wounded in the encounter with the Arbiter and was forced to rely on the other troopers, armed with the ridiculously powerful Kikoutei, to finally win the fight.

A nagging and unspoken doubt tugged at the edges of Jun's mind from that day forward. Every other youja that he had destroyed in that time had burst into a mist of fine black particles and disappeared but the Arbiter had simply vanished. Jun had watched the Inferno's Rage connect solidly yet there had been no mist and no body after the fact. He worried that the Arbiter had escaped.

It was with that fear in his mind that Jun began scheduling the other troopers for personal training sessions at Nasté's home. If another battle was to come he wanted to be as well prepared as he could, he wanted to lend a hand in the fight, and he wanted the troopers to see that he was as much of an asset to the team as any of them.

For the most part he had been successful in his efforts; under the strict tutelage of Ryo and Seiji he had learned the proper way to wield the massive arced dual bladed glaives that were the sole physical weapons of his offensively balanced armor. Through many insightful conversations with Shin and Toma he had learned the most effective ways to participate in the dynamic team's battles, when to hold back and defend and when to step forward to fight, and how to efficiently and wordlessly communicate with the others in times of stress and fatigue. And Shu remained the best motivator and morale booster of the five, answering questions that the others could or would not, offering partnership for strenuous training sessions, and keeping the other troopers at bay when it was plainly obvious that Jun needed a well-deserved break. More than once in the last months Jun had found himself sitting quietly in Shu's apartment near Yokohama for a weekend of solitary study.

But things had been calm since the Arbiter was defeated, at least until last night, and Jun continued speculating as to the cause of the disaster. Tokyo authorities had yet to respond to press questions and had released only a very brief statement which said that investigations were still ongoing and several hundred people remained wholly unaccounted for. Despite the terrifying situation it seemed that everything was normal, or at least as normal as a massive explosion could be, and had not been caused by youja of any kind.

So when the yoroi ball gave a sudden flare and burst of heat, Jun gave a startled jump, dropped the orb to the ground where it landed with the clink of glass on tile, and stared at it dumbly as it rolled to rest. When the realization that the orb was sitting out in the open finally hit him he leaned down to pick it up, grasped it hidden in his palm, and gazed around the room to see if anyone had noticed his strange movement.

He felt some relief when he saw that no one was staring at him but when his eyes came to rest on the doorway his heart skipped a beat and his blood ran suddenly cold. A young girl stood there, her long black hair hanging straight around her face, staring at him with cold and expressionless eyes. She wore a bloody hospital gown and left thick red footprints on the ground where she stood.

Jun blinked hard and tried to hide his expression that bordered somewhere between terror and revulsion. He recognized her face as clearly as he had seen it hours before. It was Akiko Nagano, the eight year old girl that had bled out on the table, and she was standing plain as day and very much alive in the cafeteria doorway.

"What the hell," he said quietly and blinked a few more times before rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands. He knew that she could not be standing there, she had been pronounced dead before his very eyes, but even after a number of blinks and eye rubs and head shakes she remained.

He stood and strode toward the door with quick, deliberate steps and tried as hard as he could to look as though nothing was wrong, like he was responding to an emergency page or had forgotten an important appointment. But his eyes never left the girl standing in the doorway and after five steps toward the door she turned and bolted down the hallway, her tiny footfalls sounding as bloody slaps on the shiny white floor.

"Wait!" Jun cried and before he could think twice about what he was doing he darted after her.

He followed her at breakneck speed through the winding corridors toward the hospital foyer where patients stood in a queue that stretched from a line of doctors near the check in desk all the way out the front doors, ignoring all of the many strange looks and calls that came his way from classmates and colleagues. When the corridor finally opened into the enormous and crowded entrance hall he stopped suddenly, having lost Akiko's tiny form amongst the writhing mob, and surveyed the room.

Jun heard his name being shouted above the noise of patients and doctors, apparently Chiharu and her friends had taken pursuit but had fallen far behind; Jun was a runner after all, and it was no secret that when he sprinted anyone would be hard pressed to catch him.

He heard several pairs of footsteps running behind him at the same moment that he saw a flash of wild black hair dart between two patients. He was off again, sprinting as fast as he could through the crowd. He barreled through the queue, knocked two wounded men roughly to the ground, and emerged from the other side with a dozen angry doctors and twice as many patients cursing and giving chase. But Akiko was in sight again, rounding the corner that led toward the clinic.

He followed her through the clinic, through pediatrics, up two flights of stairs, and through two more hallways before he realized that something strange was happening. He could not fathom why she was running from him or why he was even seeing her in the first place. But when she ducked into the utility stairwell the whole place changed and his racing thoughts died away.

The threshold of the utility stairs marked the end of the hospital and the beginning of what Jun could only conclude was the netherworld, or the netherworld as he had once known it. The walls of the hospital gave way to a wide orange sky and far in the distance a line of ancient Japanese structures rose into the clouds. He could see the vague outline of a river meandering through lines of squat barracks and ships that looked like tiny dots flowed serenely along its surface.

Presently Akiko led Jun up a winding wooden staircase that creaked and swayed with every step and had no discernable end. He took the stairs three at a time, clutched his burning yoroi ball tight in his right hand, groped at a stitch in his side with his left, all the while damning himself for not eating or sleeping to keep his energy up. If only he had rested in the last day and a half he would have caught up with Akiko a long time ago, but his wit was dull and his body responded as he imagined an old rheumatic man's might.

Jun made a note that he needed to watch his rest. There was no telling when he might be called to fight and being exhausted would more than likely get him killed.

At last Jun came to a landing high in the air that looked as a rooftop of ancient structure. A single solid beam ran down its middle and on either side of the beam a long mat of brick colored tiles sloped downward at an extreme angle. Near the edge of the rooftop the beam turned up in a ninety degree curve which ended in a flat platform no more than a foot square in size.

Jun sprinted across the beam with balance and ease until, at its end, he hopped up onto the platform. A chill breeze blew past him and as he looked down he could see that he was standing above a river channel. Across from him, over a fifteen foot gap, rose another building similar to that upon which he stood. On its rooftop stood Akiko with her arms wrapped around her bloody gown to fight away the cold while her matted black hair whipped around her face. Beside her stood another figure, a young and petite woman with black hair and a slender sword strapped to her belt.

Jun recognized this woman immediately and felt a sudden overwhelming sense of despair. Her name was Mai. He had destroyed her corrupted spirit moments after the troopers had defeated the Arbiter and for months afterward he had felt inexplicable guilt and remorse.

"You're dead!" Jun cried through gasps for air, speaking as much to Mai as he was to Akiko.

But Mai did not respond. Instead she looked down at the girl standing at her side, as if expecting her to say something, but the place remained quiet.

"What do you want?" Jun demanded. He felt his yoroi ball pulsing with intense heat in his palm and thought more than once about calling forth his armor. His head was spinning with thoughts of battle and worry of how his extreme fatigue might prove to be a disaster.

Mai did not show any hint of emotion as she stared at him. Her eyes were as blank and empty as Akiko's and the two girls looked eerily similar as they stood still in the wind. But then, after a long moment spent in quiet, Mai stepped forward and rested her wrist on the hilt of her sword.

"Alter your path," she said firmly, "or the others will forsake you. And then they will die."

Jun was dumbfounded by the statement and stood overcome with dread. He could not think of what to say or how to make Mai clarify her perplexing warning.

"Jun!" came a cry from behind. "What the hell are you doing?"

Jun jumped and whirled about on the spot, his eyes wide and his chest heaving with panicked breath. Before him, standing on the same thick wooden beam that he had just crossed, was Hatsuharu Atsuko. He was flanked by Chiharu and two other doctors, both men of fantastically bulky builds, and the lot of them looked irate.

"Alter your path or you will be forsaken!" Mai called, and Jun turned to face her once again. He could not reconcile how she was standing on one side of him while his colleagues stood on the other. How had they entered the netherworld? Could they not see that Mai was standing there? Could they hear her yelling across the wind?

"Jun," Atsuko said again and this time his voice was very quiet, as if he were addressing a wounded and unpredictable animal. "You need to come down from there and tell me what's going on."

Jun turned to face Atsuko again and watched the man's expression shift from anger to confusion to concern. He was stepping forward now, inching along the beam as though he were afraid that Jun might jump, with his right hand outstretched and his fingers beckoning Jun toward him.

Jun did not move. He looked between Mai, still repeating her warning, Atsuko as he shuffled forward, and the three angry and terrified doctors that stood behind. His brain racked with confusion; he could not understand how they had gotten to this place, he could not understand how he had gotten to this place himself, and he could not fathom how Mai might have reformed her destroyed spirit.

But then he was struck with sudden realization and as soon as the thought entered his brain he recognized the strange sensation that he had been feeling. It was as though his mind was split between two separate realities, between the hospital and the netherworld, and he could see what was happening in both places at the same time. He felt as though he were in the midst of a vivid and intense daydream though he could not discern whether Atsuko or Mai was the figment of his imagination. It was the same sensation that he felt when utilizing the shadow of his armor but he had not called it forth and could still feel the yoroi ball blazing in his closed palm.

"Atsuko-sensei," Jun said quietly and closed his eyes tight, "I'm having a hallucination."

"What?" Atsuko demanded sharply.

"I'm hallucinating," Jun said again and he heard his voice quivering with what might have been fear.

When he opened his eyes again Atsuko was staring at him blankly and the others were looking as incredulous as anyone Jun had ever seen. Behind him Mai's calls were still echoing forth and any time he looked over his shoulder, which he did quite frequently, he could see her and Akiko standing side by side.

"What do you see?" Atsuko said.

"I can't say," Jun replied. He could not mention the netherworld to Atsuko or the doctors assembled before him. Not only would they think that he was insane but it could put them in danger if they ever found out that he wielded a mystical armor. There would be too many questions, too much exposure, and Jun was not ready to handle such attention.

"You're on the hospital roof," Atsuko said informatively, "you're about two inches from a twelve story fall."

Jun nodded curtly, closed his eyes, and stood still until he felt Atsuko's calloused hand close on his wrist. His head swam with worry and fear and he barely registered when two more pairs of hands grasped his arms and shoulders and pulled him gently down from the ledge on which he had been standing. He felt his legs buckle under his weight and heard himself give a quiet grunt as his descent was halted by a rough pull on his arm.

He felt himself being lowered to the ground where he sat with his hands folded in his lap.

"Chiharu," Atsuko commanded, "PPN drip in my office immediately. You two, get him downstairs. Take back halls and avoid the crowds. We don't need any more excitement for tonight."

With a chorus of 'yes sir' the group followed their respective orders, Chiharu bolting off down the stairs to prepare a mineral rich supplementary intravenous drip while the two males, each holding one of Jun's arms delicately over his own shoulder, escorted him down the stairs. Atsuko remained on the roof for a long moment afterward, staring out at the dawn and trying to decide what to do next.

First he would have to take a second look at Jun's timecard for the week. Then he would have to call Nasté.


	3. Chapter 3

NOTE: Hello again, everyone. I'm doing my best to keep my word and post once a week. Heads up, however, I was about halfway through chapter 4 when I decided I didn't like where it was taking me, so I scrapped what I'd written. I don't think this will put me behind, but just in case it's not up by Saturday you know why! Keep reading, reviewing, and enjoying.

Chapter 3

Nasté sat in her study and watched the news ticker as it scrolled along the bottom of the screen. She felt morbidly impressed as the numbers from the Tokyo Station explosion rolled by: eight hundred people affected, two hundred confirmed dead, and bodies were continuing to pile. A large number of persons had gone missing in the event and still remained unaccounted for nearly twelve hours after the incident.

She, Toma, and Ryo were up half of the night discussing the potential of the disaster. The two troopers were certain that it had been caused by some kind of youja activity but Nasté remained firmly convinced that it had been a freak accident with no discernable cause at all. And when Toma and Ryo tried to convince her to go and retrieve Jun from his work at the hospital before something terrible happened she diligently explained that everything would be fine.

When the phone rang just after nine she jumped and stared at it for a few moments before picking up the receiver and uttering a quiet greeting.

"Ms. Yagyu," said the voice on the other line, "I hope you're having a good morning."

"Haru," Nasté replied. She was now somewhat surprised by the call as she had not expected to hear anything more from the hospital until much later in the day. Jun was supposed to have been off at eight and would probably skip classes, so he should have been walking through the door at any moment.

"I'm calling with regard to Jun," Atsuko said officially.

"If you need to keep him a while longer that's okay with me. I understand you've been busy, I've been watching the news all morning."

Atsuko chuckled lightly. "No, no, I don't need to keep him," he said and continued before Nasté had the opportunity to panic. "You see, Jun was involved in a minor incident this morning and I'm afraid I need to send him home. The problem is that I don't believe he's in good enough condition to be driving that motorbike of his all the way back to your place and I'd rather not put him on a bus."

Nasté's brow screwed up in confusion. "An incident?"

"A minor incident," Atsuko corrected. "There will be plenty of time to explain once you're here. I have already informed the nurse at check in that you will be arriving so you should have no trouble getting into my office."

"Is he all right?" Nasté said. She could hear panic welling in her own voice.

"I assure you that everything is fine. He just needs an escort home."

"I'll be there as soon as I can," Nasté said quickly and hung up the receiver without uttering a goodbye.

Within ten minutes she had roused Ryo and Toma, the latter of who remained only semiconscious even after Nasté had explained herself, and the three were soon on the road to Tokyo. Nasté said nothing as she drove even as Ryo barraged her with questions: did she know what had happened, what had been the cause, had there been any youja involvement? And Toma, who fell quiet as soon as Nasté had explained that he was there to translate any jargon she might encounter with Atsuko, remained half asleep in the back seat with his head propped lazily on his hand.

At ten thirty Nasté pulled her ancient red car into a stall near Keio University Hospital's front entrance, exited the vehicle, and marched toward the door without so much as thinking to wait for her two companions. With effort Ryo managed to wake Toma and the two followed some distance behind, exchanging dark looks both for Jun's incident and for the sour mood that Nasté had fallen into.

By now the hospital had become relatively calm. Patients continued to trickle in who had suffered very minor wounds or had developed symptoms well after the fact, and while the place remained full well past its capacity the halls had been almost entirely cleared of the wounded and dying with notable exceptions waiting in queue outside of the surgery wing. Nasté found the check in desk easily and rushed forward with a quick stride and a look of extreme panic wrinkling her delicate face.

"My name is Nasté Yagyu," she said at once and the nurse sitting behind the counter looked up. "Atsuko is expecting me."

The nurse pointed to her left with a smile. "Straight down the hall, corner office."

Nasté hustled off with Ryo and Toma following close on her heels and within two minutes she had barged through the wood and glass paneled doors into Atsuko's office. The dean sat quietly behind his tall wooden desk, scribbling away at paperwork, and glanced up at Nasté thoughtfully as she began to survey the room.

She found Jun at once, reclined and quite asleep, lying curled on his left side on a simple daybed in the corner nearest the door. His head rested gently between the back of the headrest and his left hand which was curled into a loose fist, and his right hand extended out behind his back where it hung over the daybed's frame like a discarded cloth. A simple metal stand had been erected behind the head of the bed and on it hung a bag filled with clear fluid, connected with a thin tube to the top side of Jun's right wrist.

Nasté rushed over and bent low over him, her arms outstretched as though she meant to touch him, and then she looked terrified at Atsuko.

"What happened? Why is he all hooked up like that?"

Atsuko looked between Ryo and Toma and Nasté then beckoned the three of them toward his desk. The company obliged, each took a seat in one of four plush leather chair situated opposite him at the desk, and Atsuko smiled benevolently while extending a hand to Ryo.

"Hatsuharu Atsuko," he said, and once Ryo had shaken his hand he held it out to Toma, who did likewise. "I don't believe we've met, but if you're a part of Ms. Yagyu's cavalry then you must close friends of Jun's as well. It's a pleasure to meet the two of you."

Ryo nodded and introduced himself quickly while Toma simply looked around the room as if he were bewildered by the enormous office space.

"Haru," Nasté prompted.

Atsuko smiled at her again and produced a small stack of long thin papers from a folder on the side of his desk, laid them out before her, and pointed to a spot near the middle of the sheet.

"This is a timecard," he explained. "Specifically it is Jun's timecard for the last pay period. Do you notice anything peculiar, Nasté?"

She examined the paper closely and nodded. "He's worked every day since March 25," she said.

"He's worked at least twice the number of hours that I've scheduled him every week for the last month now," Atsuko added. "He's worked seventy hours this week after the triple shift he pulled this morning. Is everything all right at home?"

Nasté looked somehow indignant. "Of course everything is okay," she said.

Atsuko nodded, taking Nasté honestly upon first answer. He could see that he was trying her patience by avoiding the discussion of Jun's incident and so he pulled the timecards back, stowed them in their folder, and clasped his hands tightly together.

"Jun has been overworked and undernourished for a while," Atsuko said. "He experienced a hallucination this morning that left a number of his classmates quite worried. Around eight Chiharu, a friend of Jun's, came bursting into my office claiming that he was running through the halls like a madman and had knocked two patients to the floor. By the time I caught up with him he was on the roof, standing at its edge like he was about to jump. I wondered if perhaps he had been more upset at the large number of patients we lost last night but once I called his name he came right back."

Nasté sat quiet but glanced at Toma and Ryo, who again exchanged looks that were full of meaning. "What do you mean "he came back?" she said.

Atsuko sat straight in his chair with an impressed look upon his face. "It was the most remarkable thing I've ever seen," he said, "Jun self-diagnosed his hallucination, but he would not tell me what he saw, and he was completely lucid for its duration. If anything he may have been slightly alarmed by the situation, though I'm sure that if I had been in a similar state I would not have fared nearly as well," Atsuko paused and then looked thoughtfully at a spot on the ceiling. "It was as if his mind was in two places at once. He could see me clearly, though I remained in the context of his hallucination. I asked if I could run some tests but he vehemently declined. So I hooked him up with a supplemental IV and a small dosage of sedative and, well," he waved a hand in Jun's direction as if it should explain everything.

Toma and Ryo exchanged the same look again. Atsuko's description of the situation seemed consistent with what they had seen on a number of occasions before, on occasions where Jun had utilized the special ability of his armor to summon a duplicate of himself. Jun had tried to explain the sensation to them once before and described it as experiencing a very vivid and very powerful daydream in which he could see through his own eyes and from the perspective of the shadow simultaneously. This dual consciousness allowed him to control his body and the shadow at once, a maneuver at which he had become quite adept, in order to execute difficult offensive moves and decoy tricks. More than once Ryo had been confused into thinking that Jun's shadow was not a shadow at all, and on those rare occasions he learned his mistake by way of the flat of a blade to his back.

"At any rate," Atsuko continued, "I would like him to head home and get as much rest as he can. I don't want to see him in this hospital again until at least Monday, I would prefer him to stay away until his exams are finished, but I understand that such a thing is a little much to hope for."

Nasté nodded.

"And do make sure he's getting plenty of food, will you?" Atsuko said with a smile. "A man of his stature needs more than we tend to think and I know that if he gets too caught up in his work he forgets."

Nasté nodded again.

The company sat in silence for a long moment after this exchange and it seemed as though Atsuko was trying to decide what he should do next. Then, as if it were an afterthought, he opened a drawer in his desk and produced a small pad of paper, scribbled on it, and handed it firmly to Nasté.

"It's a prescription for a mild tranquilizer," he said lightly and then continued as Nasté, Ryo, and Toma looked worried. "It will help him to regulate his sleep."

Atsuko stood then and walked toward Jun with a brisk gait. He unhooked the tube from Jun's wrist and collapsed the pole behind the daybed, then turned back to face the three at his desk.

"Would you like me to arrange help getting him to the car?" he said. "He won't wake for an hour or so."

"We can get it," Ryo said firmly, and the company exited Atsuko's office. Ryo carried Jun out through the emergency doors to avoid panic and situated the sleeping boy in Nasté's car for the hour long ride home.

The rest of the day passed in uneventful quiet. Nasté shut herself up in her office to continue work on her records while Ryo and Toma lounged in the sitting room and talked about youja and Jun's incident. Jun, who had waked an hour or so after arriving at home, lay silent on his own bed with one hand tucked behind his head while the other absently rolled the now cool yoroi ball around on his chest. He was thinking about what he had seen.

His memory was fuzzy and he could not be certain whether it was caused by legitimate fatigue or if it was an after-effect of the sedative he had been given at the hospital. He recalled the hallucination in detail, the sights and feelings were quite vivid, but he could not remember what had been said. It was particularly troubling because Jun was certain that Mai, or his vision of Mai, had been trying to warn him of something.

She had talked about altering his path, about the other troopers forsaking him, and that they would die, but he could not recall the exact phrasing. Had she said 'alter your path _and_ the others will forsake you' or 'alter your path _or_ the others will forsake you?' The difference between the two was immeasurable.

He felt almost certain that she had used the word 'and,' because it would not make any sense for the others to be upset if he continued living as he was. The other troopers were proud of him, proud of his success in school and his development as a warrior, and would likely be upset if he chose to give any of that up. Furthermore, Jun was certain that the dynamic of the group had changed for the better since he had become involved again. He gave the warriors something to focus on besides themselves and their own differences. His presence was a unifying factor that helped everyone to feel as though they were working toward a single goal.

But the thought tugged at his mind that she could have said 'or.' But if that were the case it would mean that Jun had to change something or suffer apparently dire consequences. There were so many different aspects of his life that he could not be sure what he would even need to alter. He could not think of anything that might cause the others to turn against him and could not think of anything that might prove deadly for anyone.

And over the implications of Mai's warning loomed the physical sensation that had accompanied the hallucination. He had felt somehow out of control, as if his body had been working on instinct alone and without the guidance of his usually cool mind. From the moment he saw the image of Akiko in the cafeteria he had felt absolutely impulsive. He had given no thought to the consequences of chasing her at full speed through the hospital and had only been able to regain control of himself after Atsuko had called him back to reality.

Jun realized that in that moment he had not been himself. It was as if he had been seeing the world through eyes that were not his own and acting on desires and instincts that were completely foreign to him. He had felt awkward in his own skin and knew as soon as he came back to his senses that he had been acting incredibly far out of the bounds of his character. But all the same he had not realized the sensation until it had passed. He had been completely unaware that he was acting strangely at all, and that lack of control over himself was perhaps the most troubling bit of all.

The source of Jun's deepest pride was his ability to temper himself against all sorts of emotions, impulses, and reactions. He was never out of control, was level headed, calculated, and quite slow to anger. It was a quality that others admired in him even if it caused him to come across as ice-hearted and emotionless at times. It meant that he was thoughtful, careful, and could be relied upon to make objective decisions in times of stress.

He wondered what all of it meant and whether the whole episode had merely been a byproduct of his fatigue as Atsuko had said. Somehow Jun doubted that it was and he fell asleep late that night, kept alert by worry and thought.

Next morning Jun woke early, as alert and aware as if he had slept for twelve hours, though when he looked out the barely open window opposite his bed he could see that the sun had just begun to peek over the trees in Nasté's enormous back yard. It looked like it would be an unseasonably cool day; he could see the sparkles of dewdrops as they hung on the trees and could feel a chill breeze as it blew through the curtains.

He rolled out of bed, or rather from on top of it as he had not gotten under the blankets before he fell asleep the prior evening, and changed into a pair of loose shorts and a jumper. Then he crept quietly downstairs, past the sitting room where Toma still slept quietly on the couch after having apparently fallen asleep while trying to decipher one of Jun's textbooks, and sat down in the foyer with a sigh. There, he tied on his running shoes, exited the house, and closed the door behind him with an expertly quiet click.

He had been right about the morning being unseasonably cold. The breeze bit hard at his legs and face though he thought that it was a pleasantly refreshing sensation after spending much of the previous day numb from sedation. So he began his morning run feeling as content and uninhibited by thought as any other day. In fact, he realized that he felt better than he did on most mornings and chalked it up to the fact that he had not been out since Monday.

In the hour that he ran he did not think once about his hallucination, the warning that Mai had given him, or how his classmates might react once news of his incident spread. He remained happy and thoughtless until well after he returned home, up until the point when Nasté shuffled into the kitchen with a wide, loud yawn while Jun stood at the sink draining his second glass of water.

"Already out today?" she said.

Jun could suddenly feel his stomach writhing, as if he'd ingested a small snake with his water. It was an unfamiliar sensation, at least in this scenario, and so he remained quiet while he contemplated his strange reaction. He realized moments later that what he felt was anxiety for the fact that he had not yet told anyone exactly what had happened at the hospital and had not yet described what it was that he had seen. He fully expected Nasté, Ryo, or Toma to want to talk about it but Jun felt uncomfortable with the idea even still.

"Yeah," he said flatly and made for a quick exit. "I'm going to go clean up."

Nasté watched him exit and could not help but feel like he was avoiding her. Generally he was quite personable after he ran and was more willing to talk to her at that time than at any other. She could not fathom why he had made such an obvious move toward the door when she had not even so much as sat down.

Nasté sat at the table and thought for a long time about Jun's odd behavior and could only conclude that he was still feeling awkward and embarrassed about his episode. She had not planned to ask him about it until she knew that he was ready because she understood that such a moment of vulnerability was uncomfortable and unusual for him. So Nasté put all thoughts of his incident behind her and decided that if Jun wanted to discuss anything at all he would find her the same way as he always did.

It was surprising, then, when half an hour later Jun came striding into the kitchen so purposefully that she, Ryo, and Toma, who had waked and joined her for breakfast a few minutes before, fell immediately quiet and stared at him with some expression of confusion and automatic expectation.

"It was a patient," Jun said briskly from the doorway, "an eight year old girl who died on the table from bleeding in her brain. It was a long night, I was tired, hungry, and I was upset from losing half of the people that came into our room. It was a one-time deal and any unusual behavior you see from me henceforth is a byproduct of all the crazy things that have been happening between work and school. I'm stressed and exhausted, and that's all there is to it."

Nasté, Toma, and Ryo exchanged blank looks. To all three of them the speech had sounded somehow rehearsed, as if Jun had spent his uncharacteristically long shower deep in thought in order to prepare a succinct explanation for everything. It was not unusual for him to prepare his words before speaking, they all knew that sometimes Jun had trouble expressing his feelings in the heat of the moment and that he felt comfortable when everything he did and said was well thought out. It was part of what made him such an excellent fighter, the troopers knew, because he had the uncanny ability to predict how others might react to his words and actions and could adjust what he did to fit his audience and his purpose.

But somehow this statement had sounded odd, even considering its curt delivery.

"Unusual behavior?" said Ryo with interest. "You haven't been acting unusually at all lately, not that I've noticed."

Then, Ryo looked between Toma and Nasté, both of whom shook their heads to indicate that they had noticed nothing strange from Jun either. It was as if the boy was apologizing for something that he had not yet done. Or perhaps he had been acting strangely but had been doing it in such a way that no one else had been able to tell. He could have been thinking unusual thoughts, having unusual dreams, or experiencing unusual feelings. All of these things could be easily concealed by someone such as Jun, someone with enough mind to stay quiet about things which might cause others to worry.

"The point stands," Jun said. He produced a cup of tea at the counter, took a seat at the table, and it seemed to the others that he was trying to act as though he had said nothing out of the ordinary. He looked at Toma and casually sipped his drink. "Study today?"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The next week passed in a haze of exams, half shifts, and unwelcome questions. On Thursday Jun refused Ryo's training and by Friday Jun had grown so tired of explaining to his classmates what had happened last week that he simply stopped responding altogether. He spent the weekend in total silence as if he had been rendered mute, and because he stayed always in his bedroom Nasté could never be certain what he was doing.

Jun was busy thinking, and he had much to think about. On top of the constant reminders of his hallucination he had started having dreams, an almost completely foreign experience for him, and he had been so distracted by all of it that he managed to spectacularly fail one of his end of term exams. It seemed to him that the last week of his life had been an uncontrollable disaster.

He was not certain what he should do. He rarely asked for help with anything, never mind seeking emotional assistance, but on more than one occasion over the next days he found himself standing with his hand poised to knock on Nasté's office door. But when he stood there, frozen by fear of vulnerability, he always reasoned himself away. He told himself that everything he was experiencing was all quite normal given his stratospheric stress levels. He told himself that all he needed was extra sleep and to focus his concentration and everything would be fine.

But as the days continued to pass he grew more concerned until he was so consumed by his contemplation that he could no longer sleep. His dreams were getting worse; every time he did sleep he woke hours later cold with sweat and numb with panic. But he could never remember what he had dreamed.

So almost two weeks after his hallucination Jun found himself striding firmly to Nasté's office. He entered without knocking, did not look at her even as she glanced up confusedly from her work, and fell with unconcealed exhaustion into a chair.

He knew that she would not address him. She had made it plain to all of the troopers that if they ever wanted to talk with her they should say what they needed to and if they merely wanted company they were more than welcome to stay quietly. Nasté's office was her place of work, after all, so when she was at her desk she preferred not to be disturbed.

All the same she did not return to work after Jun sat down. She eyed him with concern as he studied his own feet and fidgeted, his hands folded in his lap. Jun looked wholly uncomfortable.

"Are you all right?" She said at length.

Jun shot her a quick and shifty glance. He had not expected her to engage him; he had hoped to begin the conversation on his own terms and now he felt nervous. He could not lie to her because she knew him well enough to know when he was not being truthful. Perhaps worse was that he had come to her intending to tell her everything: the dreams, what he actually saw when he hallucinated, and how he had been feeling jumpy and increasingly out of control of himself, but now that he was faced with the prospect of such complete honesty he felt sick.

"I failed an exam," he said flatly and did not look up from the floor. "It was an important one, too."

Nasté rested her chin on her palm and tilted her head curiously. "I know that," she said. "I got another phone call last week from Atsuko. He was worried that you weren't going to tell me about it and, honestly, I was beginning to worry, too."

"Oh," Jun replied. He was not as much surprised that Nasté knew about his exam as he was that she believed that that was the only thing wrong.

"He said that it shouldn't cause you any trouble, though. A single failed exam might bring your grade down but you'll be fine in the long run."

Jun nodded and resumed staring at his feet. His body felt heavy with disappointment; he wished that Nasté would have guessed that he was not telling her everything. But how could she know? She trusted him beyond reason, especially considering the severity and number of lies he had told in the past.

"You've been awfully quiet lately," Nasté continued after a while, and when Jun looked at her he could see that she was carefully searching his face for meaning. "Even for you, I should say. You've been awfully quiet."

Jun offered a disarming smile, stood, and ran his fingers through his hair awkwardly. "Don't worry about me, I'm okay," he said.

"It's my job to worry about you. Maybe if you worried more about yourself I wouldn't have to."

Nasté had a strange ability to deliver what should be harsh messages in a gentle way and Jun was thankful for it. She was right, after all, that Jun was not known for worrying much about his welfare. He tended to get too caught up in projects, study or making certain that everyone else was taken care of to pay much mind to himself.

What Nasté did not know was that Jun was quiet worried, and he knew that if it showed then everyone around him would realize that something was terribly wrong.

"I'm going to go make some dinner," Jun said. "Are you interested?"

Nasté's face cracked into a wide grin. "Absolutely, I'm famished."

Jun left Nasté's office feeling worse than he had felt before he went in. His confidence was gone completely and now he knew it beyond doubt. Of all the people that Jun had ever met Nasté was by far the easiest to confide in. She did not judge, never rushed to conclusions, and offered some of the sagest advice that Jun had ever heard regardless of what he said. If he could not talk to her now then where could he go?

The thought hung in Jun's mind like a hundred pound weight for the rest of the night. He was so consumed by worry that he did not hear Nasté knock on his bedroom door at what must have been midnight and did not notice that she had entered until he felt her weight settle on the foot of his bed.

He sat up then, excited and hopeful that she had deduced that something much larger than a failed exam weighed on Jun's mind.

"I had a feeling you would still be awake," she said quietly. "I didn't think that all of this would have affected you so much, when you were ill, I mean. Maybe that's why you've not been feeling well lately."

"I feel fine," Jun lied.

"I'm not stupid," Nasté said and again she did not sound angry. "I'm just a little concerned."

She sat for a moment as if contemplating something quite serious, then reached into the pocket of her dressing gown and produced a small orange bottle, which she then tossed to Jun.

"I know how you feel about this sort of thing so I've been holding on to them," she said. "Atsuko said that they would help you sleep."

Jun looked up at her with a stupid expression.

"I know that you don't like feeling tired, especially not when it's caused by something as unnatural as a pill, but I think you should give it a try."

When Jun nodded Nasté stood to leave. But then she turned, somewhat unexpectedly, and looked at him sympathetically.

"I hope you don't mind that I'm trying to help you out. I know how you feel about charity, too."

Jun stood, placed the bottle on his dresser, walked to Nasté and wrapped her in a hug so tight that she was forced to hold her breath.

"Thank you," he said quietly and with a final squeeze Jun released Nasté, and then went back to lying on his bed.

At that moment Nasté knew that something was wrong.

Ϫ

The five samurai troopers stood armed and armored in a line shoulder to shoulder against a deep black backdrop. The colors of their mystical armors glowed bright against the dark and the steel blades of their deadly weapons flared from unknown light. Beneath the crests of their helmets the five familiar faces seemed battle hardened and somehow old as they scowled at the enemy.

It was a single diminutive figure that stood before them, clad in black and almost completely obscured by shadows. It was surrounded by heaps of what looked like bodies, unmoving and limp, that shined with fluorescent red blood. The figure held no weapons and Jun could see no sign of blades anywhere on its being.

Jun watched the standoff with a mounting dread. He felt his stomach writhing, tying itself into knots, and his head felt light and clouded. The feelings were made all the more disturbing as he realized that he was dreaming. He was not standing among the other five troopers and, rather, was watching from a very distant place as if peering through a telescope. His vision became fuzzy at its periphery but his hearing remained sharp like the warriors were right beside him.

"Is this what it comes to?" Ryo shouted coarsely. "Is this some kind of cry for help? Do you think that this is noble?"

The dark figure let out a cold and joyless laugh so evil that Jun felt his skin crawl. Then it spoke in an icy low tenor that struck Jun as dimly familiar, though try as he might he could not tell from where he had heard it before.

"There's no honor in any of this," it said. "Not in what you're doing or in what I've done."

"That's a lie!" Toma cried.

The figure laughed and spoke once more, but this time it sounded much different. He seemed maniacal as if teetering on the very edge of insanity and his voice trembled with excited energy that bordered somewhere between rage and elation.

"It's all pointless," it said. "You'll all die in the end no matter what I do. It doesn't matter that you rely on each other, it doesn't matter how good of a team you think you are. You don't understand that you're alone, and that's what will bring you down. All of you stopped acting on your instincts a long time ago, you lost the ability to look at a situation objectively," the figure spat the last words in spite. "Your hive mind obscures your judgment so severely that you don't even know what is in your best interest. Who are you to say that what I did was wrong? Would you have done differently in my place?"

Jun felt anger welling up in him like a spring, hot and intense in his gut. There was pressure in his head and his muscles twitched and tensed as though he was about to lash out. And when he looked to the warriors his rage multiplied. Ryo and Shu looked angrier than Jun had ever seen them before; Seiji and Toma seemed to be in a state of bewilderment, as if trying to come to grips with sudden betrayal; and Shin looked as though he was about to burst into tears. The five were unmistakably hurt by the figure's speech and despite their best efforts they could not hide their reactions.

As one, Ryo, Toma, Shu and Seiji struck out in a furious offensive but Shin stayed still and stared at the figure as if transfixed.

The figure returned every attempted blow with an attack of its own. It lashed out with its arms, which transformed mid swing into long and deadly black blades, and not a single strike missed its mark. The thing danced around the four warriors with mocking laughter, slapping against their helmets with the dull flats of its weapons.

It was toying with them.

"Stop this!" Shin cried suddenly. "That's enough!"

Ryo, Shu, Toma and Seiji jumped back obediently and shot expectant glances at the warrior of torrent. And at the same time the figure whirled about and launched its arm in a wide horizontal arc. Its weapon flew like a boomerang, the arced weapon racing toward Shin's face, but the champion of water stood rooted to the spot.

There was a crack, then a thud, and the world went black.

"Shin!" Jun screamed, and the desperate sound was foreign even in his own ears. "Shin!"

Jun felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and woke immediately. With a start he sat upright, slapped Nasté's hand unceremoniously away, and blinked the sweat out of his eyes. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears, neck and chest. His head throbbed with skull splitting pain, his vision swam from the sudden movement, and his stomach churned and boiled and writhed. In a single unflattering motion he shoved Nasté away from his side, leaned face first over the bed and vomited on the floor.

He fell from the bed in a heap and once he righted himself stayed on his hands and knees for a long time, his eyes closed against the pain in his head. His eyes grew hot with moisture and he bit his lip to suppress the sudden unwelcome emotion.

Nasté was mortified and did not know whether the terrified screams, the vomiting, or the tears disturbed her the most. She kneeled beside Jun and stared at him like she had never seen him before. How could it be that he was in this position, she wondered, when he had always seemed so indomitable?

Jun was panting, his back heaved with each breath so violently that Nasté feared he would hyperventilate. His mouth opened and closed periodically as if he was struggling to speak.

"I'm sorry," he said finally and his words were so quiet that they were almost indistinguishable from his breath.

Nasté did not know what to do. She did not know what was wrong or how to begin to help. Jun was a brother to her and seeing him in such distress and obvious pain was nearly more than she could bear. He was supposed to be strong and infallible, emotionally sound and always in control. Nasté would not have believed him capable of such an emotional and terrified outburst if the evidence was not sitting in front of her.

Eventually Nasté regained her composure, wrapped her arms delicately around Jun's shoulders, and pulled him to his feet with great effort. As she led him toward the bathroom he did not look at her once, did not open his eyes, and kept his head bowed to the floor. He mumbled apologies the whole while and his voice quivered and broke like he'd spent the whole night screaming at the top of his lungs.

At last Nasté helped Jun to a seat on the bathroom floor where he sat quietly while she produced a cold wet towel and a small glass of water. Then she kneeled before him, pressed the towel against his face, and forced the glass into his trembling hands.

"Are you going to throw up again?" she asked firmly.

Jun shook his head.

"Then I want you to drink that water and try to calm down. Do you understand?"

Again, Jun nodded.

Twenty minutes passed before Jun was calm, and when he managed to pull himself back together it was like nothing had happened at all. The only indication that he had ever been sick was his face, still alarmingly pale and glistening with sweat despite Nasté's frequent dabs with the towel.

Still, the two sat in uncomfortable quiet. Neither really wanted to admit what had just happened; Jun because it was embarrassing and Nasté because it affirmed her suspicion that Jun was more ill than he ever let on.

"What happened?" Nasté said at last.

"Side effect of the tranq," Jun replied automatically, and though he tried to pass the lie off as normal his voice broke mid-sentence. His face went paler still and he looked away.

Nasté knew that he was lying and, judging by Jun's expression, he understood that clearly. But she decided against pressing the point; this was not the time to play angry parent, not when Jun was so far out of his element that he could not pass off a simple lie. Instead she helped him to his feet again and escorted him to the sitting room where she deposited him on the couch with a stern look.

"Stay here and rest. I don't care if you sleep or not but I don't want you on your feet. I can't carry you, you know."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm going to go clean up your," she stopped, uncertain how to address the puddle of sick in Jun's bedroom floor. "I'll be back to check on you in a while."

Nasté exited the room, gathered her supplies, and set to work on the carpet. As she worked she thought hard about the last few weeks and how Jun's strange behavior had been getting progressively worse. At first he had tried to act normally and covered everything with well-prepared statements of questionable factuality. But then he went quiet and spent days on end locked away in his bedroom, which was not in itself an odd behavior, but when coupled with his complete unwillingness to talk about anything it was quite alarming. Then he had come to her, completely out of the blue with apparent intention to talk, but had lied about what was wrong. And now he had waked in the middle of the night screaming like a child, had thrown up, and again tried to pass it off as routine.

It was absolutely clear to her that he was in trouble and desperately seeking to hide it, but she did not know why. She did not know if it was her place to seek outside help for him and did not want to alarm anyone with unconfirmed theories.

So when Nasté phoned Shin early next morning she vowed to keep the conversation as casual and speculative as possible. And Shin, who had not expected such an urgent call so early in the day, remained as polite as he could while Nasté hurried through her explanation of the evening prior, offering the occasional "I see" or "okay" when she paused for breath.

"And when he started screaming your name I rushed in there, tried to wake him up, and then he shoved me away and threw up," Nasté concluded hastily.

Shin remained silent on the other end of the line for so long that Nasté worried that he had hung up. "I'm flattered," he said at last and the statement sounded as much like a question as a statement.

"I wasn't sure what to do so I called you," Nasté said quietly.

Shin sighed. "You called me because he's sick and you feel like you don't know how to deal with it, I understand. It was probably just a nightmare, or he ate something bad, or he's stressed out. Isn't it coming near the end of his term at school?"

"Yes," Nasté replied. She had worried that Shin would dismiss her worry without much thought. "But I think that he's not telling me something."

"There's probably a very good reason that he's not telling you something, if that's the case. I'm sure that whatever this is, whatever made him sick I mean, will clear up in a day or two, and if it doesn't just take him to the doctor. He works at a hospital, doesn't he? I'm sure someone will help him out."

"But—"

There came another sigh and when Shin spoke again his voice was heavy. "Nasté, you know that when it comes to all of us you're a little overprotective. I'm sure this is nothing to worry about, but if it's really worrying you that badly I'll make a trip out. I want you to give it a week or so, but I can make arrangements if they need to be made."

Nasté smiled, certain that if Shin saw Jun's odd behavior first hand that he would believe that there was something more than food poisoning at work.

"Okay then," she said. "Thank you, Shin."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Nasté spent the next weeks hoping that Jun would get better and that things might return to normal. For the most part she got her wish as Jun passed all of his final exams with top marks and started working his typically insane schedule once again. But still he remained uncharacteristically quiet and spent all of his time at home in his bedroom. It was a compromise that Nasté could handle.

As May rolled in and the weather warmed it seemed that Jun had completely overcome the stress of last month entirely. Ryo began to show up twice a week for training, all of which Jun bore with renewed energy and focus despite occasional frustration with himself. Shin and Shu showed up three times since Nasté made her distressed phone call to Shin, and they agreed that all was well.

Near the end of the month Nasté invited all of the troopers for a relaxing weekend at her house, an offer that everyone gladly accepted, and on May 25 the place was as full and lively as it had been since Christmas. That evening was spent engaged in polite conversation. There was much catching up to do as the warriors did not see each other as often as they saw Jun and Nasté, and each of them had stories to tell and rumors to put down.

It seemed to bother no one that Jun did not speak unless he was directly addressed. A thick book lay open between his dinner bowl and the edge of the table and he seemed positively engrossed; it was not unusual for him.

"So, what are you reading now?" Toma asked him after the rest of the conversation died down. "I thought you were done with classes for the summer."

Jun glanced at Toma, and then shot a contemplative look to each of the troopers before regarding the book again. He had not given the thing much thought when he borrowed it from the library; it seemed a perfectly natural thing to read at the time. But now that the others were taking interest he felt oddly embarrassed.

"It's a healthy living book," he said flatly.

When Jun looked again at Toma the warrior of strata seemed confused. His nose wrinkled and his brow furrowed as if Jun had said something so preposterous that Toma could not make any sense of it.

"A healthy living book?" Shin said. "What do you need that for; you study that sort of thing all year."

"Unless he was being intentionally vague," Seiji said smartly.

Jun shifted uncomfortably in his chair, unable to deny Seiji's astute observation. "It's a book on emotional temperance."

If possible, Toma's face screwed up even more and he looked to Nasté as if he expected her to explain. But Nasté looked just as perplexed as everyone else and offered only a slight shrug in response.

"What does that even mean?" Shu said quietly, and though he was looking at Shin for his response it was Ryo who spoke next.

"It means moderation and control," said Ryo, trying to look as philosophical and smart as he could. "Control over impulse, isn't that right?" He looked at Jun, who nodded curtly.

"It sounds like a book for the two of you," Nasté said slyly as she looked between Ryo and Shu.

As laughter broke out again Jun wondered if the awkwardness he had felt was self-imposed and unnecessary. He smiled weakly and looked around at the people who were as good as family to him. They had been for years, yet he still felt the stinging sensation that he did not quite fit in.

He had always remained somehow separate from the other troopers, who considered themselves to be representatives of the utmost good, were pure in their virtues, and acted ever in the name of what was right. They existed in a black and white world where everything fell on one end of the dichotomy of good and evil, but Jun lived in shades of gray. For him, good and evil were blurred on a fine line that shifted in scope and density based on a person's beliefs. And he, who made a habit of lying, cheating, and spent a number of years involved in illegal trade deals, was still somehow considered to be good.

It was because Jun was so different than the others that they had difficulty understanding when he was genuinely distressed. Because Jun was so adept at hiding behind a mask of stoicism and passing his troubles off as minor hiccups the troopers could not tell when his lies were covering something dangerous, they did not know how Jun honestly felt about most anything, and were helpless to understand his motivations.

The others began wildly speculating on why Jun, who was the most rational and relaxed of the bunch, would be reading such a strange book while Jun remained completely quiet. He did not want them to know that he had spent the last weeks working tirelessly to hide his continuing problems from Nasté, an effort at which he had been quite successful. He had managed to temper his reactions to recurring nightmares, to suppress the outward signs of sudden mind-numbing headaches, and to completely obscure his worry over impulses that he did not ordinarily have.

As of late, Jun had noticed himself becoming quick to anger. He spent more time over the last weeks frustrated at mundane tasks and petty errors than he ever remembered before, and he alarmed himself quite seriously when, during his final practical exam in anatomy, he lost his temper over a technicality and felt a strong urge to slash his instructor's neck with his scalpel.

He kept it all in, though, withheld behind a front of casualness that had become such his focus that he found trouble expressing anything at all. But he worried that such apparent indifference to everything he was faced with would tip Nasté off again, and so he had read every book on anger management and patience that he could find.

When the conversation died down again Jun let out what he hoped was a natural looking yawn, snapped his book shut with conviction, and stood.

"I'm going to bed," he said firmly, and made for the door. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Jun!" Ryo cried and Jun turned around. His face looked as if he'd forgotten to mention something quite important. "We're all going to have a little spar tomorrow after lunch, are you in?"

Jun looked dumbly between the troopers but remained quiet. As of late he had been growing frustrated with his performance in training sessions with Ryo, at silly things like missed parries or sloppy strikes. Add in the stress of an armored fight against five opponents and the potential for a serious slip up, physical or emotional, increased profoundly. He did not honestly want to take part in any kind of prolonged group activity with them because they had an uncanny ability to sense when something was amiss.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "I think I'll pass. I've got some work I need to take care of."

Ryo quirked an eyebrow and looked to Nasté, who shrugged again.

"It's not like you to pass up an opportunity to show us up," Seiji said.

Jun knew at once that declining the invitation had been a mistake, especially with observant Seiji around. Seiji, above all the other troopers, knew how to read people, how to tell when they were lying, and he knew Jun well enough to call out anything that did not fit with his character.

"Sounds like an excuse to me," Shu said with a coy smirk. "Are you out of shape or something? Are you afraid to come out and play with the big boys?"

"No, it's not that at all," Jun protested.

"Then it's settled," Shin interrupted with the same smug look that Shu now wore. "Tomorrow after lunch."

Jun left the room, retired to bed, and slept dreamlessly through the night.

It was particularly due to his heavy sleep and much to his dismay that Jun woke late the next morning. He had hoped to be up before any of the others, perhaps to sneak out of the house and spend the day in Tokyo under the pretense that he had been called into work at the last minute. But the second he looked at the alarm clock on his bedside table, which read a quarter to noon, he knew that such an escape was all but impossible.

Judging by the racket down the hall the others were wide awake and full of energy to burn in their afternoon spar. Shu and Toma could be heard in some heated debate, though their words were obscured by the clanging of pans and dishes as Nasté and likely Shin worked in the kitchen to prepare lunch. The din was periodically accented by Ryo's loud laughter, probably at the expense of Shu and Toma, and a few times he spoke and sounded slightly put off.

It took a long time for Jun to drag himself out of his bed, knowing what waited for him downstairs. First would come jibes from Toma, Shu, and Ryo about why he had overslept so severely. Then Nasté would ask for the hundredth time that week if he was feeling all right and Shin, if he was nearby, would offer a comforting grin or a pat on the shoulder that Jun understood meant "I'm here to talk." Finally, if Seiji was around, he would offer a biting yet flawlessly true comment on some aspect of Jun's person or behavior which led Jun to wonder quite often whether or not Seiji like him at all.

Bogged down by no small degree of dread, Jun dressed, made his bed, and proceeded to run through every activity he could think of to put off going downstairs, but eventually he exited his room with a heavy sigh and slumped toward the noise. When he reached the landing that overlooked the foyer and the sitting room he paused and leaned against the bannister, looking with interest at the scene below. As he had guessed, Toma and Shu were involved in a serious discussion while Ryo watched amusedly, but on the table between them all was a chess board on which pieces were strewn about and lying on their sides.

"Ah," Ryo called when he noticed Jun standing above, "good morning. Or is it afternoon now?" He looked at his watchless wrist with mock contemplation.

Shu and Toma ceased their argument at once and turned to face Jun as well. Toma offered a casual wave before he turned and began gathering up the destroyed chess set.

"We were starting to worry that you weren't going to get up. Seiji thought you might have been trying to ditch us again," Shu said through a wide grin. "You know, he's usually right when it comes to predicting you."

Jun did not acknowledge Shu's joke. "I didn't know you played chess," he said. "Though it looked like it wasn't so much playing as it was demolishing."

When Jun walked down the stairs and shot a glance at Shu the trooper's face looked cut from the stone of his armor, his bright expression replaced by a look that fell somewhere between anger and embarrassment.

"I don't play chess," Shu said quietly, and Jun could not help but notice that Ryo and Toma were both grinning widely and stifling laughter that proved beyond a doubt that they had made quite a good time at Shu's ineptitude at the game.

The three troopers fell into step behind Jun as he walked toward the dining room, where the sound of dishes clattering on the wooden table signaled that lunchtime was near. Nasté arranged seven place settings while Shin made several trips to and from the kitchen, teach time returning with his arms laden with food in serving dishes. The two of them moved expertly, as if they had done this ritual a thousand times before, and they seemed almost oblivious to the four men as they hustled around.

Jun was the first to find a seat and was almost surprised to see Seiji already at the table, a crisp newspaper in his hand. When Seiji shot him a purposeful look Jun felt slightly perturbed.

"I was just reading a follow up on the recent accident in Tokyo," Seiji said and regarded his paper again. "The whole thing had almost slipped my mind since the local news stopped its coverage."

Nasté and Shin joined the others at the table and began to pass serving bowls around. The process was such second nature now that the conversation did not stop while lunch was being served, and the awkward silence after Seiji's comment lasted only long enough for Shin to settle in his seat.

"That's right," Shin said brightly, "I had some questions I wanted to ask you, Jun, since you were a first responder and all."

"I wasn't a first responder," Jun replied without looking up from his plate, "I was in surgery that whole night. It was sheltered in there so I don't really know any details." He paused and looked up at Seiji. "What did the article say?"

Seiji shook his head slowly. "Some of the missing persons were found in the wreck. The site has otherwise been cleared and rebuilding is set to begin next week."

"That was fast," Nasté said.

"We all had a chat about it shortly after we heard the news," Shin continued his prior thought as if there had been no interruption. "We wanted to know if you noticed anything strange."

Jun nearly choked on his rice. He thought that Ryo and Toma would have kept news of his hallucination quiet, especially considering that it had been triggered by perfectly natural causes.

"No, nothing," Jun said quietly.

"No strange wounds or odd behavior from anyone?" Shin asked. "Any signs that—"

"It wasn't youja," Jun said hotly. "Everything I saw that evening was consistent with, well," he paused and waved his hands as though indicating that the answer was all around them, "mortal causes. It looked like they had been at the site of a serious explosion, that's all I saw."

Except for the hallucination, Jun thought, but they did not necessarily have to know about that. He had not considered telling its very youja centric theme to anyone since he'd sat awkwardly in Nasté's office weeks prior, and he had been trying since that day to push the worry over it from his mind. He had long since decided that the whole thing had been a product of fatigue, as Atsuko had suggested, and perhaps some unspoken uncertainty over his chosen career path. So Jun worked hard to maintain his present course and set in his mind that what he was doing, in every aspect of his life, was right.

But now, as he sat facing the other troopers, Jun couldn't help but wonder if he should tell. It seemed obvious to him that the others knew something was wrong but had yet to figure it out, and their questions and observations were coming closer to the mark every day.

"So how do we want to work our little scrimmage?" Ryo said happily, and Jun was glad for the sudden change in subject. "Will we have teams? Free for all?"

"No white armor," Jun said at once and the others laughed: an indication that the tenseness of earlier conversation was gone. "It's imbalanced and unfair for me to take it on by myself."

"Teams it is, then," Toma said. "What do you say to the three of us," he motioned to Ryo on his right and Seiji on his left, "against the three of you?"

"Seems fair enough," Shin agreed, "though it gives your team the advantage of range."

"Which would go with me no matter who I was with," Toma replied smartly.

The banter went on until well after the table was cleared and the six troopers stood in a group at the back of the house. It took another ten minutes of debate to decide on which team Toma would play, and in the end it worked out just as the trooper of tenku had originally proposed: Ryo, Seiji, and Toma against Shu, Shin, and Jun.

The six called their armors, drew their weapons, and situated themselves against each other some twenty yards away from the back door, in the center of a large clearing that separated the house from its forested property.

"Rules are as follows," Ryo said officially, "Flats of blades when possible, no head shots, no ballistic moves. If you're hit then you're out, body shots only. No limbs."

"And no destroying my house!" Nasté shouted from the balcony above where she presently stood in the midst of hanging laundry.

"And no destroying Nasté's house," Ryo added with a smirk. "Questions?"

"Do I have to do this?"

Shu elbowed Jun roughly in the arm and the boy fell quiet again. Something felt distinctly wrong with this situation, Jun thought. He felt the same uncomfortable numbness in his stomach that he had been feeling for weeks, but now that he was wielding his armor it was overwhelming. He could not place what caused the anxiety but he knew that it was there beyond doubt, and he wondered how much of it was caused by the armor and how much was caused by his own overactive imagination. He recalled how he had felt when he had hallucinated; it was the same sensation that he had when he summoned the shadow of his armor to fight, yet it had been somehow out of control.

With a sigh he pushed the thought from his mind, decided that there was no way out of the fight, and figured he may as well take it as an opportunity to learn and test himself against the others. It had been a long time since he had had a chance to fight with them, even in play, and he wondered how he might fare considering he was being pitted against two of the most skilled swordsmen he knew.

Jun cleared his throat and Shu and Shin leaned close to him. "You two distract Ryo and Seiji and I'll dash up the middle for Toma. The earlier we get him out the better we'll do in the end, I guess."

Shu and Shin exchanged looks and nodded their approval of the simple plan. Quite often in these group encounters Jun would call an early strategy, though most times they involved some matter of stealth or trickery. Shin and Shu found it a bit strange that Jun would suggest such a straightforward tactic, but when they realized that the others would not expect it either they knew that the plan would work.

Ryo was the first to move for action, and at once Shin and Shu rushed forward. With a loud ring Shu's bo connected with Ryo's dual blades, locking the two in a grapple, and Shin grasped Seiji's nodachi with the flexible end of his trident to push the blade aside while Jun rushed through the gap between.

Seiji rolled to his left, wrenching the sword out of Shin's hold, and as he jumped to his feet he swung a long horizontal arc with the flat of his blade toward Jun's exposed back. Shin cried out warning and Jun dodged deftly to the side, leaving Seiji's nodachi far out of reach.

By now Toma was well aware of the blitz and cried for extra cover. He fired a line of arrows Jun's way, three of which fell harmlessly short of the target and one of which Jun deflected, whether by accident or skill Toma was completely unsure, off of the wide arc of his left glaive. Seiji rushed frantically to his ally's aid but was caught short when Shin's trident grasped him at the ankle, and the trooper of halo was sent sprawling clumsily to the dirt where he lay watching his prey dart away.

It took a very quick step to out maneuver Toma's accurate shots. Jun ducked and jumped and threw his glaives up for cover so that every arrow shot his direction either missed entirely or ricocheted off of his massive blades. After a minute or two of full sprint Jun lunged, closing the distance between he and Toma in two steps, pivoted on his left foot to avoid a down slice by Toma's bow, and planted the flat of his blade squarely in the small of Toma's back.

"You're out," he said quietly in Toma's ear and though he felt quite pleased with himself he spoke with a certain air of confidence that made it seem that the elimination had cost him little effort.

Toma released his armor and slumped toward the porch where he practically crumbled onto a chair. From there he sat, head resting pathetically on his hand, and watched with a distinct pout as the others continued their fight.

The moment that Jun reentered the fray he saw Ryo's katana slap Shu on the breast, and in the moment that Shu shuffled away Jun launched himself toward Ryo with abandon. Jun could hear Seiji's cry of warning somewhere to his left but his focus remained firm even as Ryo whirled about and threw his blades up to defend. Sparks flew as the four blades locked in a wicked grapple and, seconds after the connection, Ryo's katanas began the inevitable slide down the length of Jun's arced glaives.

With a surge of power Ryo shoved Jun away with enough force that the boy staggered briefly, but before Ryo could think to make use of his moment of advantage Jun was on him again and demonstrating a prowess with his weapons that Ryo had watched develop over the last months with astonishment and pride. The left blade worked defensively, using its massive length to parry and deflect most any strike Ryo could think to throw, while the right worked offensively, slipping through cracks in Ryo's defense with speed.

Ryo sliced downward with his right blade and brought the left in from a wide angle, thinking to strike horizontally and vertically at once in a move that Jun could surely not parry one-handed. But Jun simply tilted the left side of his blade up, angled its sharp edge toward the sky, and let the momentum of Ryo's blades work for him. Clumsily, Ryo's swords slid toward each other along the glaive's edge until they crashed in the middle with a loud ring and a shower of sparks. Ryo had barely enough time to dive backward as Jun's right glaive swung round, the flat of its edge passing dangerously close to Ryo's chest.

"He nearly had you, Ryo!" called Shu from aside, and when Jun glanced toward the house he could see that Shin had recently joined the others.

"You could have told me that I was on my own," Jun cried as he searched the yard frantically for Seiji who seemed nowhere in sight.

But then Jun heard a sound behind, a footfall it must have been, and he dropped to his knees with such force that it hurt. Seiji's nodachi passed overhead so close that Jun could feel wind against his neck. He heard Nasté cry in terror at the close call and wondered just how near he had come to a long, steel-induced nap.

At once, Jun kicked out and swung his leg about, forcing Seiji to retreat so as not to be knocked off his feet and allowing Jun to regain his ground. With a warrior on either side Jun was surrounded and outnumbered and his two opponents were closing in slowly. He watched as the two communicated through subtle motions and movements of their eyes, and when he saw Ryo nod almost imperceptibly he lunged forward and away, turning mid-step to watch the two nearly collide as they charged forward in what they must have thought would be an easy finish.

It was without thought or worry that Jun brought forth the shade in his armor. It was near second nature to him now that any time he was outnumbered he should use the power of his armor to his own advantage, and even in a simple good natured skirmish he could not suppress the automatic reaction.

The shadow settled at Jun's side, its glaives drawn and its posture as defensive as its master's, and Jun felt keenly the weakness that came with utilizing this power. His mind blanked for a fraction of a second before realigning itself between the two beings and he heard only vaguely as Ryo shouted "Don't let him do it!" to Seiji. But the two were too late, and as they charged forward with blades swinging Jun and his shadow burst into action in time.

Jun could hear as Toma, Shin, Shu, and Nasté clapped amusedly from the porch, as though they were watching a fight in a gladiatorial arena, and a surge of hot rage welled in his stomach.

He engaged Ryo with a whirling left slice, which the wildfire parried easily, and followed it up with a low sweeping kick to the knees. Meanwhile his shadow distracted Seiji with a flurry of simultaneous wide strikes and short jabs that the halo could not hope to avoid with his cumbersome weapon. In such a way, Jun kept Seiji on the defensive while focusing the majority of his attention on Ryo.

As the fight went on Jun began to lose himself in the vision. He watched as Ryo launched strike after strike beneath an overlay of Seiji's frantic parries, as if the images his mind received were being projected from two sources onto the same white screen. In this state it did not matter whether the fight was in fun, it only mattered that he was fighting, and any desire to hold back was trumped by the instinct to win. The shadow had been summoned and it believed that its existence was in jeopardy. It had to survive.

Ryo fell back from a particularly forceful thrust and watched in genuine horror as Jun bore down on him. Jun had always been competitive, had always tried every trick in the book to win these exhibitions, but had never done so with such recklessness. Jun never let his desire to win cloud the need for safety, but now it seemed that any such ideas had gone out the window.

"Seiji! Knock that thing out!" Ryo cried from the ground, and he crossed his blades in front of his face to catch Jun's glaives in a grapple. "Something isn't right!"

Seiji wanted to say that he was trying but he could not force the words out of his mouth. He knew of the shadow but had seen it only once in passing and had never thought that he might experience its wrath himself. The thing fought with the ferocity and strength of a human warrior with no limitation, and had it not been for the shadow's slight degree of transparency Seiji would have believed that he was fighting Jun proper.

The warrior of light felt momentary horror when he chanced to look in Ryo's direction. The wildfire could not regain his footing, not with the reckless blows that Jun threw at him, and he looked as desperate and terrified as Seiji felt.

This has to end, Seiji thought, and he sliced a horizontal arc to keep the shadow at bay. He could not fathom how to maneuver around such precise blows, not when they came at him so fast and not without a distraction of his own. He did not want to destroy the shadow, he did not know what effect it might have on Jun, so he continued parrying and dodging what blows he could not outrun.

"Just hit it!" Ryo yelled. "You're not going to hurt anything you just have to knock it out!"

Then several things happened at once.

First, Seiji stepped backward again as a glaive flew in front of his face. And when another slice came at him at eye level he dropped low, sidestepped around the shadow in the same direction that the blade traveled, and wound his nodachi as a baseball player gearing to smash a home run. At the same time that Seiji made this daring move Jun stopped mid-swing over Ryo and the wildfire stared dumbfounded from his place on the ground as the boy whirled around as though he knew something was behind him, putting up a quick defense with his glaives. And when Seiji's blade slashed cleanly through the shadow's back the thing did not react at all, it simply stared blankly ahead before disappearing into nothingness.

Seiji had not yet followed through the blow when he heard a cry from the side. He looked to see Jun stumble forward as though he had taken Seiji's powerful hit directly, the glaives fell from his hands and before they ever hit the ground they disappeared along with his armor. Jun was on his hands and knees for a brief second, panting and wincing as though he were in indescribable pain, before his right arm gave way and he half-fell, half-slumped forward with his forehead against the dirt.

Ryo and Seiji exchanged dark looks and rushed to Jun's side. And at nearly the same moment, Shin, Shu, Toma, and Nasté ran down from the porch looking terrified and bewildered.

"What happened?" Nasté cried, but none of the troopers paid her any mind.

"Jun?" Ryo said. "Are you okay?"

Jun did not respond. He did not move and he remained utterly silent, though when the troopers caught glimpses of his face they knew that he was stifling any expression of pain. In that moment Jun was reeling. His head was spinning and his back and neck felt like they were on fire. He could practically feel blood dripping against his skin and his body trembled with exertion and adrenaline. Every thought that might have entered his head was clouded by the striking realization that he had lost control completely. In the seconds before Seiji's blow landed he suddenly and inexplicably stopped seeing from the perspective of his shadow, he thought that the nodachi was coming for him. He could not differentiate between himself and the shade.

When at last Jun looked up he did not gaze at Ryo and did not acknowledge the others gathered around him. Rather, he stared through them, at a small girl some twenty feet on the opposite side. It was her again, he thought, Akiko Nagano, standing at the forest edge in the same tattered and bloody hospital gown that she wore the night she died. She was staring at him with empty eyes, with sad eyes that beckoned him toward her.

Jun blinked, shook his head, and blinked again. The girl was still there. He felt Ryo grip his shoulder tightly and heard stern sounding voices but they sounded monotonous and unbroken so he could not understand. Akiko wanted him to follow her. It was all happening again. Jun knew that this was his moment to revisit the old message, to make certain that what he had heard before was true, to clarify the cloudy warning and clear his mind of worry.

When Jun's fist connected with the crest on Ryo's helmet the wildfire fell back, his ears ringing, and by the time he or anyone else understood what had happened they were watching Jun disappear amongst the trees.

Ryo released his armor immediately and clutched his head with both hands. "Go after him!" he ordered. "We'll never catch him if he gets a head start!"

At once Toma, Seiji, Shu, and Shin rushed into the woods while Nasté stayed behind to tend Ryo's now throbbing head.

Jun did not realize that he was being followed and even if he knew he would not have stopped. He was close on Akiko's heels as she weaved between the dense trees and though his chest heaved and a stitch stabbed at his side he did not slow. They ran on for what felt like an hour until finally Akiko disappeared amongst the thicket. Jun swore loudly and bore on, and mere moments later stumbled out and into the blinding light as it reflected off of Nasté's backyard lake.

In the middle of the lake and seeming to hover over the surface of the water, Akiko stood next to the woman Jun knew was Mai, tall and slender and always bearing her long thin sword, and though Akiko wore the same blank expression as before Mai looked angry. She stared at Jun with furrowed brow and her lips were drawn into a thin frown.

"What do you want?" Jun cried.

"You have failed!" Mai replied. "You have failed!"

Jun fell to his knees. "Failed at what? What do I have to do? What are you here for? Why were you trying to warn me?"

"He is coming!" Mai screamed. "Alter your path and there may still be time! You must act now!"

"What do I have to do? I don't understand! Why will they die?"

Mai looked over her shoulder, startled by something that Jun could not see. And when she turned her gaze back toward him she seemed almost pitiful but she did not speak and did not move. Then, as she placed her hand delicately on Akiko's shoulder, the two of them disappeared.

In the next moment Toma and Shin came bounding out of the woods and Jun felt hands pressing against his back and shoulders, holding him on the ground where he knelt. The two held him so tightly that it hurt and he heard Shin yell "We found him!" three times.

"Jun," Toma said and he sounded both angry and afraid, "did it happen again? You have to tell us or we can't help you. I'm sorry but you don't have a choice. Jun?"

Toma's voice began to fade and Jun felt himself growing weak. His eyes were hot and his cheeks were wet, the stitch in his side throbbed and his back still burned. Shin and Toma's words were lost behind his heart now beating in his ears, and eventually all he knew was that their hands still pressed firmly against his aching body, grounding him in reality.

He felt strangely safe then, with their hands on him, so he let his mind go blank and slumped weak and semi-conscious against Toma's firm grasp.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Nasté was pacing. She had been for nearly an hour and though the panic she felt when the troopers reappeared from the forest had faded she still felt slightly frantic. No one could tell her what had happened because no one honestly knew, and somehow Nasté understood that she would not be told even if they did.

Toma had carried Jun back to the house and the boy had been completely unresponsive since. He seemed to be asleep, or perhaps unconscious, but when questioned Toma would confirm nothing. Instead, the warrior of strata marched straight to Jun's room with Shin close on his heels, and they had not been seen since.

The other troopers were arguing rather hotly in the sitting room about what had happened and Nasté could hear every word even though she stood halfway across the house. From her distant perspective it seemed that Ryo and Seiji were doing most of the talking and Seiji, strangely, seemed quite irate while Ryo vehemently denied that he knew anything. Nasté wondered if Ryo had forgotten the day that he had accompanied her and Toma to the hospital or if he was deflecting for Jun's benefit.

"He's lying to us," Seiji said, "we all know it."

"You don't know that," Ryo replied emphatically. "He hasn't said much of anything to any of us lately, how can he be lying if he hasn't said anything?"

"Then he is withholding something from us and there's no doubt in my mind that it's important."

Nasté heard Shu clear his throat. "We all know that he doesn't usually have much to say," said the warrior of rock, "he's not the kind of person to say anything that doesn't need to be said."

"He's also not the kind of person who would lose control of himself in the middle of a friendly fight," Seiji retorted smartly. "Or the kind to punch the people trying to help him before running off to god knows where."

"Actually," Ryo began, "he has been known to—"

"That's not the point!" Seiji roared, clearly at the end of his patience. "You don't think it's remotely odd that he's been so stressed yet hasn't said a word to anyone? He won't even talk to Nasté, because you know if he had she would have told us about it. We've been through this before; the lying, the anger issues, not telling us things. And do you remember what was happening then?"

No one spoke for a long time after Seiji trailed off. Even Nasté stopped pacing to think about what had just been said. She had not given any thought to Jun's past since the unusual behavior had started, but now that Seiji mentioned it the conclusion did not seem such a stretch. Jun had once been unwittingly connected to the Yakuza; he had been a trafficker of illegal substances. Perhaps they had found him again and put him back to work. Perhaps he had been threatened.

But Jun had not been going out. He had barely left the house at all in the last months except for class or work. And when he was at home he spent all of his time locked away in his bedroom and Nasté had never stopped to think of what he might be doing. She always assumed that he was studying or sleeping, but now that she thought about it his sleep patterns were unusual as well. Some days he was practically comatose when he walked through the door and other days she could hear him rustling about through the small hours of the morning.

Nasté had heard about students using stimulant substances to maintain focus, study long hours, and work otherwise unmanageable loads. She couldn't help but wonder if Jun had gotten involved with it all. It would explain his erratic behavior, the inconsistency in his sleep, and because he worked with doctors every day it would not be terribly difficult for him to acquire such things.

When Nasté looked back down the hall toward Jun's bedroom her heart sank. He had come so far since he moved in with her and the prospect of a relapse into delinquency was almost more than she could bear. She could only hope that Shin and Toma were making some progress, if Jun was awake at all.

But Shin and Toma were making no headway at all, despite the fact that Jun had been awake for some time. The three sat in what was no total silence since Jun had simply refused to speak. Instead he sat on his bed with his knees curled to his chest and stared at the wall, and any time a question was asked the only response he might give would be to close his eyes and breathe deeply.

Toma and Shin were out of ideas. Every question, comment, or guess that they made about what had happened had, at first, been met with a quiet but firm "I don't know." But the moment that Toma suggested that Jun had been seeing things again the boy went completely mute, leaving the two warriors exchanging looks of confusion as they wondered what might be going through Jun's mind. They could not see the slightly fearful expression on his face.

Jun could not get past what had happened in the fight against Ryo and Seiji. His armor had felt more uncomfortable than ever, even before the spar began, and at the end of it all he lost control entirely. The act of directing his armor, which by now was second nature to him, had failed. In any normal circumstance he would have easily dodged Seiji's blow but in that moment Jun was unable to tell what was the shadow and what was Jun. The two consciousnesses had collapsed into each other and, more than that, he had felt keenly the bite of Seiji's nodachi on his back. He had been yards away from the blade.

Jun's armor had betrayed him, and the thought was more than a little terrifying. He had been warned of betrayal, but he had thought that it referred to the other troopers. He had never considered that his armor or the shadow it called had the capacity to forsake him. But now that it had, Jun knew that he had failed. He disregarded the first hallucination, had done nothing to change, and had apparently set in motion events that he did not know how to reverse.

He rolled the warning through his mind again and again: alter your path, they will betray you, they will die.

When the bedroom door burst open the three warriors inside jumped, as startled by the noise as they were surprised that someone would barge in so suddenly. Ryo stood in the doorway looking as angry as he did disappointed, and behind him stood Shu who shared the same dejected expression.

"Seiji is gone," Ryo said flatly and then looked to Jun. "He's really angry with you, you know, and I can't really blame him. "

Jun looked up suddenly. "What did he say?"

Toma and Shin exchanged even more surprised looks, incapable of understanding how they could have tried for an hour to get Jun to speak but Ryo could do so with a simple statement.

"He said that he was sorry," Ryo said, "multiple times. But then he said that he just couldn't help you anymore. He said that he felt like you were working against your best interests, which puts you against us. He said that if you didn't want his help that he wasn't going to offer it."

"He said a lot of things," Shu added when he saw how wide Jun's eyes had become, and though his vague extension of Ryo's thought was meant to calm Jun down it seemed that the statement had had the opposite effect.

"Get out, all of you," Jun said firmly, though there was no anger in his voice. "Get out of here and go home."

"Why?" Toma said.

Panic welled up then and Jun did not know how to respond. Again, he could tell them the truth, that he had been warned, that he had seen Mai, she had told him that he had failed to heed her warning, that _he_ was coming and that because of Jun's inaction everyone was in danger. But he did not know if such a thing would make the whole situation worse. The betrayal had begun, first his armor and now Seiji, and it was entirely possible that the rush to action that would follow Jun's admission would lead the troopers into more trouble than if he remained quiet.

When he looked to the others to gauge their reaction they all looked stunned but remained unmoving. It was clear to Jun that none of them had any intention of going anywhere at all, regardless of what he might say. They were concerned, that much was obvious, and Jun worried that they might never leave him alone.

"Fine," Jun cried and leapt from the bed. "If you all won't leave then I'll go."

He stormed across the room and retrieved a jumper from his closet and made for the door, his gaze set on the floor as he walked. He could feel the troopers' eyes on him, his skin crawled, and when he reached the exit Ryo stepped aside automatically, looking as dumbfounded as ever.

When Shu did not move Jun shot him an angry glare. When glaring did not produce the desired results, Jun mustered all the nerve he had and shoved his way past, and though Shu stumbled slightly against the sudden body check he kept his footing expertly.

Jun's heart was pounding so loudly that the confused cries of the others were unrecognizable. He was terrified and did not know where he might go, only that he had to leave. He believed with all of his heart that as long as the others were close to him, in proximity or in spirit, they would be in danger, and the idea that they might want to follow him made him angry despite the sense it made.

He was nearly to the front door when Nasté caught him by the arm. Her grasp was gentle but firm and when Jun turned around her delicate face was weighed with deep concern.

"Where are you going? You can't leave here in your condition," she said quietly.

Jun pulled his arm roughly away from her and stepped back toward the door. "I can go wherever I want, I don't need your permission."

Nasté's expression shifted then, and she looked angry. "Why can't you tell me what's going on with you? Are you hiding something? What is the matter? Are you on something?"

Jun felt mutinous, and all of the panic and fear that coursed inside of him changed to rage. He wondered if that was how Nasté saw him, as a delinquent incapable of reform, as a burden. A lump welled in his throat and his chest heaved with deep breaths. Before he realized that he had been gripped by such intense emotion and before he could control it he felt a stinging on the back of his hand and watched, seemingly in slow motion, as Nasté staggered into the wall.

He regarded his hand, it was numb and his knuckles tingled faintly from the contact, then he looked at Nasté who stared at him through her fingers as her hands groped dumbly at her face, and then he looked back down the hallway to where Ryo, Toma, Seiji, and Shu stared at him with all of the anger that he had just released.

Jun turned and ran from the house with all the speed he could and hoped genuinely that he had just alienated himself from the others seriously enough that they would not follow. But all the same he was struck by the very real fear that they might follow him out of a need for retaliation. He had just hit Nasté, had backhanded her like an abusive husband, and simply because she had asked what must have been, to her, a reasonable question.

His emotions were out of control.

Ϫ

Jun sat atop a tall apartment building in downtown Tokyo, staring at what once was the wreckage of Tokyo Station and listening to the sounds of the city. It was the dead of night yet traffic continued to roll and a construction crew worked diligently to repair the broken building. A dozen people walked by on the sidewalk below since Jun had sat down, and none of them seemed to notice that he was there, his feet dangling ten stories above the street.

It had been months since he had been out like this, since he had run the streets of the city with no particular purpose but his own enjoyment, and he had not missed it in the rush of life. But now that he was seated there on top of it all his heart swelled with nostalgia. He remembered life without the troopers, how simple it had seemed despite the danger he was always in, and wondered how things might have been if he had not accepted Nasté's invitation for coffee the night that he was called to arms.

He grimaced when he thought of her. He wondered how she was doing, if he had hurt her badly when he had hit her or if he had just scared her. Either way he knew that he could not go back; the others had seen what he had done and Jun could not explain why he had done it, not that explaining it would make it any better. He had been completely out of control, his emotions had overwhelmed him, and he could scarcely remember the moment that he struck her over the sensation of rage. No, he could not go back, not until he could explain himself.

With a sigh he turned about, swung his feet back to the right side of the building's edge, and stood to make his way back down. But he stopped short and drew a quick breath when his eyes fell on a long shadow before him.

He had expected a police officer but hoped that it was a resident of the building who had heard him on the climb. But as his eyes slowly moved from the shadow's edge to the figure at its end he froze dead.

A cloaked figure stood before him, his hands folded into the sleeves of his robes, and though Jun could not see its face in the dark of the night he knew that the thing was grinning. This was the Arbiter of Souls, a malicious spirit that the troopers had defeated more than a year ago, and a being that had defeated Jun with little difficulty at all.

"Greetings, shadow," the figure said.

Jun groped automatically for the yoroi ball stored ever in the pocket of his jeans. He felt as though he should say something witty but no words would come to his mind. Jun stayed very quiet and watched intently as the Arbiter shifted his weight, refolded his hands, and leaned slightly forward.

"We have much to discuss, child," said the Arbiter.

"I thought you were dead," Jun said, and his voice sounded shaky and uncertain. He wrapped his fingers around his yoroi ball and felt it pulsing warm against his palm.

The Arbiter shrugged. "I am dead," he said. "Such is my condition. But if you mean that your friends were to have destroyed me then I am afraid that you are mistaken."

"What do you want?"

"I wondered when you might ask. I am not here to fight you, and for that you should be thankful because as I recall the matter you are no match for my power. I am here to talk, to discuss a matter that you are quite familiar with by now."

Jun narrowed his eyes but remained silent.

"Yes, I thought you might put on that defiant face," said the Arbiter. "But there is no need for that. To business, then. I have been made to understand by my eyes in the mortal world that your friends are in some kind of danger—"  
>"Yeah," Jun retorted, "from you."<p>

The Arbiter laughed sharply and then fell suddenly quiet. "No, no. Your escapade through my tower left me without much of my army, short followers, and without my commanders. With thanks to you and your fellows I lost much of my control over the nether realm. I commend you for decimating my empire in such a way; I have had no time to plot against this world."

"Then what the hell do you want?"

"I mentioned that you left me without a commander."

"Are you propositioning me?" Jun said incredulously.

"You were once told that the armor you claim was not meant to be worn by a mortal," the Arbiter said and he began to walk about. "Do you recall that conversation?" He paused and looked to Jun, who stood as stone and looked irate. "Certainly, you do. But somehow, given your arrogance, I doubt that you have heeded that warning."

"What are you getting at?"

"That armor was not made for you, boy, and it is destroying you. You must have noticed by now, an attunement to the realm of spirit, unexplained pains, worries, anger? You have put yourself in danger and you will put your friends in danger, but I can offer you respite. You have merely to come with me, to assume a role as commander of the spirits in my ranks, and—"

"Absolutely not," Jun interrupted.

Jun produced the burning yoroi ball from his pocket, oblivious to the heat, and called forth the black armor without a second thought. The plates settled on his body in seconds and felt warm against his skin. His blood pumped with adrenaline and he felt no discomfort then, and so Jun pulled the glaives from their seats on his back and stood ready for a fight.

"I ask you one more time, boy. Come with me quietly, cooperate with me, and I can protect you from that armor, which you clearly do not understand, and protect your friends from the dangers you have brought upon them."

Jun lunged forward and thrust his left blade out in a wide arc that passed far short of the target. He turned on his heel through the strike and moved his blades to parry a blow that did not come, and instead ended up watching angrily as the Arbiter stepped back, his featureless face hidden beneath the deep hood of his cloak.

"So it shall be," the Arbiter growled and he threw up his hands suddenly.

Jun's armor erupted with heat. It seared against his skin so fiercely that he cast it away automatically, but even his under gear burned. Agonized, he fell forward to his knees and glared at the spirit before him, who made no sound at all as he stepped forward. Instead the Arbiter reached down and grasped Jun firmly by the plate on his chest and pulled him to his feet.

"Stupid boy," spat the Arbiter. "I will not play nice with you forever. You embarrassed me, destroyed half of the army that I worked so hard to construct, and I will not forgive you for that."

By now the Arbiter had lifted Jun from the ground completely, but the warrior did not notice. He squirmed despite every effort to remain stone faced and he cried out against the burning armor. His body was on fire and the under gear would not release.

"You will sit in my hall, you will work under my command, and because of your defiance you will watch as your world burns."

Jun felt his body connect with the stone of the rooftop and he lay there for a long while, curled and terrified. He heard the Arbiter utter a phrase so foreign that it did not sound as words, and another moment later the world around him was enveloped in a dark gray haze that Jun recognized at once as the spherical prisons utilized by the Arbiter and his ilk.

Even if Jun had had the energy to struggle it would have been futile. The prison was inescapable, impenetrable, and though he could hear every word the Arbiter spoke his cries could not be heard through the walls. All he could do was to stare at the Arbiter and watch as the world floated away.

He closed his eyes against the pain in his body and did not open them for a long while after.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Shin eyed his companions with an expression of well-tempered disgust. They had been seated in Nasté's study for nearly three hours discussing Jun's disappearance and his strange behavior over the last months, a conversation that had seemed to be on every ones' mind for a while but remained unaddressed. Nasté, who sat cradled against Ryo in an armchair while endlessly poking at the long angry bruise on her right cheek, had begun by explaining everything that she could remember from Jun's initial hallucination, to the time that he had come to her study, to what she had said to him before his abrupt departure. And while the troopers were certainly angry that she had withheld such important facts they directed none of their frustration at her. It had been two days since Jun had backhanded her and what started as a small cut had blossomed into a massive amorphous gray and brown splotch. Enough anger had been taken out on her already.

So it seemed then that the troopers were against each other. Every one of the five had a different theory for Jun's behavior, the manner of his departure, and why he had not so much as phoned since that day. Toma attributed the whole thing to stress, explained that Jun may have felt oppressed by Nasté's strict rules, and reasoned that his anger was a form of rebellion against it all. Seiji made it clear that he believed that Jun had relapsed into delinquency. Shu wondered, though somewhat passively, if it all revolved around a girl. And Ryo, ever focused on his role as a samurai trooper, believed that Jun was having some kind of difficulty coming to terms with bearing his unconventional armor.

Shin remained quiet through it all and watched as the others exploded into argument, attacking others' speculations without giving anything much thought. What struck him as more disturbing than their anger, however, was that each of them claimed to know Jun better, more personally perhaps, than any of the others. In truth, they were all familiar with a different aspect of the young man and it was clear to Shin that their rationales for his behavior were heavily influenced by their areas of expertise.

Jun never spoke to Toma about girls or to Ryo about school or to Shu about fighting, and he almost never spoke to Seiji outside of special occasions when the group was gathered at Nasté's. Shin was the only one to realize this, and concluded that it was why Jun almost always confided in him. It was not that Jun did not like or did not trust any of them with various nuggets of personal information; it was that he felt that each of the troopers had a strength and knowledge that the others did not.

It was a long while before anyone addressed Shin directly, but when Shu finally asked the torrent's opinion all eyes turned on him. It seemed to Shin that they all looked as if they had forgotten that he was even there and only now that they had been reminded would his input be tolerated. They watched him attentively, too attentively, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat on the floor.

"Well, I think that there is a lot of finger pointing and wild speculation going on here," Shin said smartly. "When the reality of it is that despite what we think we know about Jun and his motivation all we have to go on is his word, and as sad as it makes me to say it I think we all can agree that his word can be somewhat unreliable."

Silence hung in the room for a long while as each of the warrior stared. At length Toma, his brow furrowed contemplatively, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. The collective expression was a mix of indignation and curiosity, which Shin attributed to the fact that he had, in as many words, told the lot of them that their ideas were wrong and that they should be quiet about things they could not prove with certainty.

"So," Shin continued meekly, feeling strangely uncomfortable with his company, "I suggest that we figure out what we do know, all of us, and draw our conclusions from those facts. We're not going to get anywhere if we keep going at each other's throats."

"Jun has a hero complex," Shu stated boldly, but fell quiet when Shin lowered his gaze dangerously at him.

"I don't think so," Shin said. "I would wager that he's less eager to put himself into a situation that requires heroism than any one of us."

"Shin is right," Toma said. "Jun would rather avoid confrontation if at all possible. And even if it comes down to it drawing weapons is a last resort."

"We know how he thinks," Shin continued, more confident in himself now that the conversation was moving forward, "especially when dealing with issues of imminent danger. Always he prioritizes others over himself, he worries about maintaining whatever image of himself he presents to the others, and only at the end of everything does he consider his own well-being. We've all seen that hierarchy in action on a number of occasions."

"He doesn't like to be helped, either," Shu added. "He would rather work on his own."

Ryo groaned his protest from across the room. "He asks for our help all the time."

"But only while working toward independence," Toma said in instant rebuttal. "He only asks for our help so that when the time comes he can fly solo. He wants to know what we know so that he doesn't need our help later. It's a method of isolation."

Again the room was quiet as the troopers contemplated Toma's conclusion. It was no secret that the last weeks had been full of humiliation and adolescent-like awkwardness for the young warrior and so they believed that he wanted to leave them behind to nurse his wounded pride. Furthermore, they had always considered Jun's seeking of advice and lessons to be an act of curiosity or maturation, not derived from the need to prepare for anything specific. They had never considered that his mood swings had been caused by anything but stress or that when he had run off he might be walking into a fight.

"He must have thought that we were in danger or that we would be if we stayed near him," Seiji said and everyone looked to him. He had been almost totally silent since the conversation had started, leaving the others to believe him to be too angry at Jun's behavior to think objectively about him. But Seiji seemed unfazed by the surprised reactions of his companions and continued with a tone of logic and pragmatism more characteristic of Toma.

"It makes sense," Seiji continued. "He pushed us away because he was worried that we might be hurt, some way or another. It fits Shin's pattern, anyway; he pushed us away and refused help in order to keep up his fairly feeble image of not giving a damn. Then, our well-being is put before his own, which is why he left us all here with no idea what's wrong, thus stalling us from following him and offering unwanted assistance. And finally, he's run off to god knows where to face whatever problems he is having without regard for how he might fare in the end."

It was Nasté that broke the next stretch of silence when she looked suddenly to Shin as though she had forgotten an important message. "You never told us what you thought it was," she said, and the statement seemed more like a command to speak than an invitation for his opinion.

But Shin shrugged all the same and reclined on his elbows. To him the answer was obvious; there was no other explanation for the events of the not-so-distant past even when Jun was not in the equation. The explosion at Tokyo Station and the disappearance of several hundred wounded civilians were enough proof for Shin, but when coupled with Jun's behavior, the behavior of someone who knew something important and dangerous, the evidence was overwhelming.

"Youja," Shin said simply, and the others exchanged dark looks.

They had all thought at one point or another that youja had been the cause of the explosion and, to a certain point, Jun's shift in personality, but they could not reconcile how or why the events could have occurred. There was no apparent reason for the youja to destroy Tokyo Station unless it was as a display of power, but in the past all such spectacles were exclusively paranormal in nature: appearances of large spectral towers, powerful localized storms, and electromagnetic interference. The only abnormal feature of the blast, besides the blast itself, was that a large number of people had gone missing, but even that was attributed to bodies being lost in the rubble or obliterated altogether.

And the issues with Jun could not be explained through existing knowledge of the youja either. There was no way for evil sorcerers to control or influence a mortal without the use of trinkets or amulets, as evidenced by Kayura during the invasion of Arago, and none of the troopers had observed such an item on Jun's person at any time. The only other logical explanations were deception or intimidation, both of which had been used with a degree of success against the troopers in their early days. But Jun seemed more self-confident and self-aware than any of them had at that time and so the idea that he could be deceived or intimidated bordered on irrationality.

When the telephone rang suddenly the troopers and Nasté jumped, jolted out of their dark thoughts by the loud noise. Nasté scrambled to her desk, throwing her arm over her computer, retrieved the handset, and spoke while still leaning double over the furniture.

"Hello?" She said. "He was supposed to be at work an hour ago, about that. Well, he's gone. I don't know where he's gone to, but he's gone, I haven't heard anything from him in days, I'm terrified but I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to report him to the authorities—"

"Who is that?" Ryo demanded, and Nasté waved her hand angrily at him.

"It's probably his professor," Toma said quietly. "He's always calling here to check in."

"Oh?" Nasté sounded quite surprised and slightly relieved. "When did that happen? Oh? I will see what I can do and get back to you as soon as I can. Yes, thank you."

Nasté slammed the receiver into its seat and whirled around on her heel to face the troopers. She bent low and gave each of them a fiery glance that confirmed their suspicions at once.

"Another student has gone missing."

Ϫ

Jun woke in a far more flattering position than he had ever thought possible; warm, unbound, and without pain, the latter of which was surprising considering the circumstances of his capture. He lay on a small though reasonably comfortable daybed in a well lit room that, while made of dark rock, seemed remarkably homey. He was covered by a black blanket and his head rested on a matching square pillow.

The room was full of items one might expect in a bedroom: bookshelves stuffed with enormous tomes in languages that Jun could not hope to read, a wooden desk topped with glassware and empty picture frames. At the foot of the daybed sat a squat, square table upon which had been placed an ancient loaf of bread, a circular thing that had shriveled and molded as if it had been there for years, and a goblet into which Jun did not dare look. At the head of the daybed was located a second, matching table, though it remained clear.

All of the furnishings, which were far too numerous for such a tiny space, were covered with a thick layer of dust and what little unoccupied space there was hung thick with cobwebs from floor to ceiling. It was as though the place had been designed by spirits who once knew mortal comforts but could no longer indulge, and everything that they desired and remembered was locked away in this single room.

Jun sat up slowly, as much in awe as in anticipation of pain, and clutched the blanket to his chest. Certainly the Arbiter of Souls had captured him because there was no other explanation for the room in which he sat. But still, the confrontation immediately prior to his capture was so absurd that Jun could scarcely believe that it had ever happened. First the spirit had demanded that Jun assume a role as commander, whatever that meant, and when Jun refused by way of fighting back he seemed to light Jun's armor on fire. It was as if the Arbiter had put Jun down humanely, if such a thing was possible, only to have him wake in this strange place with no apparent injury or discomfort.

If anything, Jun felt a pervasive dread, not as much a fear as a severe dislike for the inevitable future and his lack of control over any of it. He could not escape this place, not only because he could not say with certainty where he was but also because the Arbiter was guaranteed to be watching, and even if he could run away there was no place for him to go. He could not return home, not after he had hit Nasté so cruelly and run off with no explanation. The other troopers were certain to punish him more fiercely than the Arbiter could ever dream, and even in the unlikely event that they showed him mercy he was not sure that he would ever be able to forgive himself for his actions.

As his thoughts wandered so, too, did his gaze, until at last his eyes fell on a wooden door almost completely hidden in the shadow of two enormous bookshelves. In front of it stood an almost imperceptible figure, short and black and hanging like smoke in the air. Its face was featureless but somehow it seemed expectant or impatient, like a bellhop waiting for a tip, and as soon as it noticed Jun's attention it turned and glided through the door.

With a quiet swear Jun jumped from the bed and bolted after the thing, uncertain where it might lead him but knowing beyond a doubt that anywhere was better than the stuffy room he woke in. He opened the door and stepped into a long wooden hallway lined as far as the eye could see by doors similar to the one he had just left. To his left the place was empty, but to his right he could see the spirit's hazy figure floating into the distance.

He rushed after it, feeling only slightly perturbed that the two of them were the only beings in the hallway, and once he began to close the distance between himself and the spirit it seemed to turn, regarded him briefly, and continued on its way.

At the end of the long hall was staircase that stretched upward into what appeared to be open air before doubling back on itself and continuing on. The spirit stopped at the foot of the stairwell and turned about, facing Jun with the same posture that it had when it stood in the door, and motioned with a sweep of its incorporeal hand that he should ascend. And as soon as Jun placed his foot on the first step the thing disintegrated into a thin mist before disappearing altogether.

Another swear, and Jun began to climb. Ten steps along the wooden walls fell away and the staircase leveled off into a short landing that curled around to the left and rose again. Jun stopped here and stared out, struck dumb by the world splayed out before him.

There was no doubt that he was in the nether realm, its winding rivers and tall ancient structures stretched on for miles, the monotonous landscape broken only periodically by tall pagoda towers whose upper levels were lost in the thick orange clouds that slid through the sky. On the ground far below tiny figures could be seen rushing between buildings and ferrying on long white wooden boats along the waterways.

Had the circumstance been different he might have found the place comforting. It looked the same as it had when he had first come here years ago, except now it seemed docile and neutral. The pervasive evil that existed under Arago's rule was gone completely so that it seemed a comfortable place. Jun could imagine it as the space where spirits lived after their mortal bodies died. It was serene though certainly not heaven as he had ever imagined it.

After a while he turned and continued winding up the stairs. Each time the stairs wound back into the building they led into a long hall identical to the hall that he had entered from, and each time the stairs led outward a landing waited with an even more impressive and expansive view than the last. At last, however, he reached the final flight; a particularly long path that let out in the center of an enormous square wooden platform rimmed with a pillared, waist high bannister at which stood a dark cloaked figure that Jun recognized immediately.

The Arbiter of Souls was as humanlike a spirit as Jun had ever seen, tall and broad beneath his black robes. His face was blank and featureless except for his bright red eyes which glowed angrily like light through a black canvas. He stood ever at ease with his hands on the railing, peering out at the world below without acknowledging that Jun had appeared behind him.

Jun was glad for the inattention. His last encounter with this being had ended as poorly as any fight he had ever been part of when he was blasted off of his feet by an unexpected bolt of energy. Jun knew that this enemy did not need proximity to be lethal.

"I am glad that your received my summons," said the Arbiter cordially as he finally turned. "I had hoped that we could talk a bit more after your rude denial of my earlier offer."

Jun said nothing, as much because he did not know how to respond as because he was stunned by the spirit's boldness. Rather, he stood and watched as the Arbiter walked slowly around the perimeter of the platform with his right hand brushing lightly against the bannister.

"I have something that you might be interested in," the spirit continued as he walked, now striding along the back side of the room toward a small pedestal which bisected the bannister. Atop this pedestal sat a wooden box, closed for the moment, which the Arbiter lay his hands on and held gently. "But first, I must ask you a question."

"And if I refuse?"

The arbiter's eyes seemed to smile, almost benevolently. "Oh, I assure you that you will not refuse."

Jun quirked his eyebrow and the Arbiter opened the box.

"My yoroi ball!" Jun cried automatically and thrust his hand into his jeans pocket. He had never realized that it was missing, yet it glowed unmistakably on a black velvet pillow inches from the Arbiter's grasp.

"Yes, the yoroi ball," echoed the spirit coyly. "And now for my inquiry. Young man, do you understand how this armor functions?"

"Of course I do, what kind of stupid question is that?"

"Then you understand how tightly you are bound to the spirit that inhabits it."

The Arbiter's tone had shifted entirely and he now seemed to purr over the orb. He touched it gently and glanced up at Jun once, watched as the boy stood trying to mask his discomfort, and returned his gaze to the ball. Then, strangely, he pressed his index finger against its surface and held the position for a long moment, and when he withdrew his hand a black tendril-like wisp followed like a string wrapped around his hand. With a flick of his wrist the wisp flew a short distance away and dematerialized as though its very existence depended upon being connected to the extractor.

It was not until the Arbiter grasped the orb and lifted it up that Jun knew that he needed to act. He understood at once the spirit's intent; it had obsessed over possessing the armor a year ago and now, somehow, it was holding in its hand the key to bearing it as his own. But Jun could not bring himself to move. Even if he did strike the Arbiter could dispatch him easily with a searing energy bolt or, perhaps worse, could summon the shadow armor and use it against him. But the spirit did not summon the armor and instead, after gazing longingly at the kanji orb for a long while, lowered his eyes to Jun's.

"You see, boy, this armor was not made to be wielded by a mortal, I am certain that you were warned of this. Do you know why that is?" The Arbiter paused but Jun made no move to respond. "It is because mortals and spirits are almost entirely incompatible. In virtually no situation is the mortal strong enough to control the spirit in the armor, but if a spirit were to wield the armor instead the two could coexist and benefit mutually from its use. Spirits are generally stronger than humans, you see, and so it is an anomaly that you were able to control the armor for so long so successfully. I commend you on your strength of spirit."

"Weekly drum circles," Jun quipped and regretted it at once.

"Yes, and you remain witty as always," the Arbiter said and sounded incredibly pleased. "I do hope you keep your bite once we are finished here."

At once the Arbiter thrust the orb forward and as the armor began its telltale summon he laughed maniacally, and Jun's blood ran cold. The armor settled on the spirit's body and looked far more impressive and far more sinister than Jun had ever believed possible. Every curve and plate accented some enormous muscle and the glaives, which seemed to have grown to accommodate the Arbiter's stature, loomed so large that they cast a shadow halfway across the room.

Jun's eyes were wide and he scarcely registered that his knees were shaking, though outwardly he stood firm and tall against the imposing figure. He did not know what might happen now that he was no longer in control of the armor and he did not understand what the Arbiter meant by his explanation minutes prior. But the idea that he was bound to it rolled over in his head like a record skipping.

He was bound to the armor by virtue and despite the fact that he was no longer wielding the armor he was still inextricably connected to it. And now the Arbiter was as well.

"You will kneel when in my presence," the Arbiter cooed.

Jun struggled to maintain his footing. His body felt suddenly heavy and an inexplicable desire to drop to his knees overwhelmed him. But he stayed put, staring at the armored spirit as the truth of his dilemma struck home.

"On your knees, whelp!" roared the Arbiter.

Jun fell to a knee and stared at the ground. He understood now what had happened moments prior: the Arbiter had removed the spirit from his armor, had destroyed it completely, and assumed the role for himself. Now he was as much a part of the armor as Jun.

The young warrior could not help but recall his last bout with Seiji and Ryo when he lost focus, when for a brief moment he could not differentiate between himself and the spirit in the armor, and that moment became terrifying. The spirit had been the dominant force in that encounter, Jun had felt its blows and reacted to the danger that it was in without thinking. He had been controlled. And now the Arbiter, a far more powerful force, was in the armor with him.

Jun understood then that he was the shadow of the armor.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Next day the troopers split up to make preparations for the unexpected. Having agreed that the most likely explanation for the recent trouble was youja all they could do now was to gather knowledge so that when the time came to act they would be ready to move. They did not know when something might happen, nor where, or what the event would entail, but it was virtually guaranteed that some youja would show.

Toma and Shin left early that morning for Tokyo and were gone before anyone else had waked. Their goal was twofold: to purchase enough food and supplies that the five of them and Nasté could live comfortably for a long while, and to interview Jun's classmates at Keio University Hospital to discover who else had disappeared and what, if any, relationship she or he had to Jun.

Ryo was the next to depart and he went alone despite vehement objections from both Shu and Seiji. He wanted to find his great tiger Byakuen and to think without distraction. As the trooper who spent the most time with Jun Ryo felt as though he should have noticed anything unusual, especially with regard to the use of his armor. The trooper of fire could not shake the idea that Jun's mishap during their last playful spar was closely related to his disappearance.

Finally, upon request from Nasté, Shu and Seiji stayed in to help her prepare her house for what she called 'inevitable destruction.' Neither of the two could argue with her when she recounted the number of times that her beautiful home had been ruined by battles, and so extra measure were being taken to protect the place against any fighting. Their day was spent reinforcing doors and windows, moving furniture out of pathways through the house, and ensuring that every room with a lock on its door was fortified to act as a makeshift bunker in case they were cornered.

By mid-afternoon Nasté's house seemed as much a bomb shelter as it did a comfortable home for six and the three exhausted workers reclined quietly in the sitting room. Only now, after all of the work was complete, was the reality of the situation hitting home and no one knew what to say to break the mounting tension.

Nasté dabbed absently at her face with a wet cloth as she flipped through the pages of a popular magazine while Shu and Seiji shot occasional glances at her or looked between each other with expressions that were full of meaning. They wanted to keep their guard up; the youja were known to strike while the warriors were separated, but after more than an hour of idleness even they could no longer focus on readiness.

Ryo returned late that afternoon to find Shu quietly sleeping on the sofa while Nasté prepared dinner. He poked his head in and offered her a pleasant greeting, accentuated with a growl of satisfaction from Byakuen, before retreating back into the house. As he passed the rear door he looked out to see Seiji seated on the veranda and stopped, somewhat intrigued, before altering his path to go outside. He closed the door behind him so suddenly that he heard a quiet thud as Byakuen's nose made contact.

"Was it too loud inside for you?" Ryo said casually and took a seat beside the trooper of korin on the stairs leading into the yard.

Seiji looked moderately unkempt, a far cry from his generally flawless appearance. His face was flushed and beads of sweat clung to his forehead as if he had been working quite hard. He stared into the forest with a blank expression, apparently in deep thought, and seemed as distant as he was disheveled.

"No," Seiji replied.

"I wanted to catch you alone before everyone else came in and we had our typical little pre-fight meeting."

Seiji looked at Ryo curiously. "What for?"

Ryo did not answer for a long time but instead met Seiji's stare with an expression of moderate concern. "Are you okay? What were you doing out here?"

"I was running," said the trooper of halo, and as he turned his eyes back to the forest his brow furrowed and he looked severe. Ryo knew that that was the end of Seiji's answer. "Why did you need to talk?"

"I don't think you should be angry at Jun."

Seiji looked incredulous. "What?"

"Let me start over," Ryo stammered, stunned by Seiji's mutinous reaction. "We should all be angry at him for what he did to Nasté. Having said that, I don't think any of us can deny that there is some special circumstance here."

Seiji held up his hand and Ryo paused, confused by his companion's sudden calm.

"Why are you talking to me about this?" Seiji said.

"Well, you just seemed really upset."

Seiji let out a genuine laugh and folded his hands behind his head. "I was upset!" he cried and then went calm again. "But now that I've cleared my head I understand that he wasn't himself. He hasn't been for a long time. I feel kind of stupid for not realizing it earlier."

"Oh."

"We need to do something," Seiji continued grimly. "I've got a terrible feeling about this whole thing, especially knowing what we know now. I mean, had we known about the hallucinations, the mood swings, the whole thing a little earlier we could have intervened. But instead we all just attributed the changes to stupid things because we didn't know any better. We were wrong to assume that Jun would automatically come to us with a serious problem like that, he's not the type to ask for help especially if he thinks that others will be put in danger."

Ryo heaved a long sigh and rested his chin on his hands. "So what do you think we should do?"

Seiji shrugged. "I think we need to be practical about this. If he's gone without a trace at all, and we'll find that out when Toma and Shin come home, we have to assume that he's been taken against his will. Then we'll need to find him, which we can do easily enough with our yoroi orbs, as long as he has his on him, but we ought not to do that until we're prepared for the worst. We don't know what we might be walking into."

"It seems like you've been giving this a lot of thought."

"I went running."

When Ryo rose to reenter the house he clapped Seiji happily on the shoulder, and the trooper of halo followed shortly thereafter. As soon as the two were inside they could hear that Toma and Shin had recently returned from Tokyo. Excited talk echoed from the sitting room and even as Seiji and Ryo took their seats among the group Toma and Shin began to explain their findings.

"When we asked around the college everyone who didn't see him regularly was surprised that he wasn't showing up to work. Those who did see him regularly were really worried," Shin said. "Everyone said he had a reputation for attendance, which I don't doubt."

"And when we asked about the other missing student," Toma continued as Shin paused, "we found some really interesting connections."

Toma produced a palm sized notebook in which he had scribbled notes, and as he peered at them he looked like an investigative news reporter excited about a big breaking story.

"The missing student's name is Chiharu, she's a third year medical student and apparently a lot of her classmates thought that she and Jun were an item," Toma said, and he seemed to be working to hide his inappropriate amusement. "A couple of people asked if they had run off somewhere together, but somehow I don't think that's the case."

Shin sat forward in his chair and waved for Toma to be quiet. "But we also got some conflicting news," he said. "A group of girls said that the two of them weren't very close at all, they didn't really talk outside of class. So we've got some people saying they're really close and other people saying that they were hardly acquainted, but everything is hearsay and no one can explain why she might have disappeared."

"So Jun is the best guess they could give you," Seiji said.

Shin and Toma nodded at once and the room fell into quiet. But a moment later Nasté sat straight and shook her head with finality.

"No, he didn't run off with anyone," she said curtly.

"You can't know that," Ryo said.

"Yes, I can," Nasté snapped and Ryo recoiled. "I remember that girl because he told me about her. I remember late last year he came into my office and was supremely angry, though he wouldn't show it outright, and when I asked him what was wrong he complained that he invited a girl to go out with him and she flat out refused. As angry as he was with her, he wouldn't go anywhere with her, not willingly."

Seiji shot a glance at Ryo and leaned back in his chair. "Then we need to assume the worst."

"Which means?" Shu said.

"We make whatever preparations we need to make and once we're absolutely ready we track Jun down," Seiji said, and as he spoke he produced his own green glowing yoroi ball. "I guarantee that where we find him we'll find the missing girl, and I've got a feeling we'll find the folks that were lost in the Tokyo Station disaster."

Shu jumped up excitedly. "Let's get to work then!" he cried.

The meeting broke and, despite the ominous news, the six seemed in high spirits as they began preparing for what could be a long and dangerous search.

Ϫ

Jun spent hours after the Arbiter's seizure of his armor pacing through what little floor space his room allowed and laying on the daybed trying futilely to rest. He was confused and afraid now that the Arbiter had control of his armor and, through the armor's unique powers, Jun. Any time the young warrior thought of their last meeting he felt a pressure in his chest so heavy that he could hardly breathe.

The sensation when the Arbiter had controlled him remained a vague feeling in the back of Jun's mind. When he had been forced to kneel the thought of action had been like a compulsion, something instinctive and undeniable that felt as natural in the moment as the need to eat and drink. He could not resist the command even as his mind fought in protest and in the end he succumbed to the order like a well-trained dog.

When the next communication came Jun was sprawled exhausted on the bed and staring hungrily at the green fuzzy bread on the end table. He could not recall the last time he had eaten and as much as he did not want to consider the possibility, the disgusting loaf was beginning to seem appealing.

There was no warning other than a strange desire to stand, a desire that Jun attributed to his unrelenting nervousness, and the moment he got to his feet the world seemed to collapse in on him. He could not catch his breath, he felt his feet leave the floor, and felt a rush of wind over his body. But the moment that his mind registered sudden panic the world expanded again and as he felt his feet on solid ground he opened his eyes and reeled, dizzy and disoriented.

He realized at once that he was back on the rooftop platform where the Arbiter had seized his armor and that the spirit was standing before him looking smug and superior. He was not wearing the armor and the yoroi orb was nowhere in sight.

"You will grow accustomed to my summons," the spirit said casually. "And you will kneel."

Jun dropped automatically to a knee, as much to catch his breath and reorient himself as to avoid the Arbiter controlling him again. He stared at the floor and breathed deeply, keenly aware of the state of his free will and dreading the moment that he knew it would be taken away.

"You will find that I am not a cruel master," The Arbiter said and Jun could hear his steps as the spirit walked away from him. Then, moments later, Jun heard a quiet scraping as of wood against wood, and he looked up.

The spirit sat at a square wooden table piled high with plates and bowls that heaped with food and drink, and as Jun eyed the feast his sense of smell seemed to return in a flash. Every muscle in his body wanted to propel him toward that table but he suppressed the urge and remained very still, staring like an animal.

"I understand that your mortal body has needs," the Arbiter said. "Come, now, eat."

Jun rushed toward the table and began shoveling food into his mouth. He did so unceremoniously, his eyes closed, his brain blank of all thought but sustenance, and he remained completely oblivious to the spirit staring at him contentedly as he gorged.

But moments later Jun stopped, quite suddenly, and turned his gaze slowly to the Arbiter. The spirit's chin rested comfortably on its folded hands and the look in its eyes smacked suspiciously of pleasurable longing. Jun understood at once that the spirit was enjoying the spectacle not because Jun was eating but because he was watching, for the first time in an eternity that Jun could not imagine, a mortal indulging its physical needs.

Jun slid around the table, his eyes never leaving the Arbiter's, and sat in the empty chair that, to this point, he had not noticed over the sight of food. From there he ate quite slowly and with his head bowed against the spirit's continued gaze, feeling somehow naked and a little embarrassed. It must have seemed silly to the spirit that Jun would need to eat.

"We have need to speak," the Arbiter said at length after Jun finished eating.

Jun did not respond. He was unsure whether to thank the spirit for the food or to simply defy him. Instead he stared at the empty plates before him and wondered how many calories he had just ingested.

"You must feel worried now that you realize that I am in control of you," the spirit continued conversationally. "But rest assured that it is not my desire to force any action upon you. I find that things run more smoothly when everyone works under his own will."

"Thanks," Jun said dryly.

"That being said, I understand that you are not the kind to work completely willingly for me, so I have prepared for you some additional incentive to do as you are commanded."

The Arbiter stood, approached the rail on the opposite side of the platform from where Jun sat, and leaned against the bannister before waving the young man over. Jun followed the order tentatively, uncertain what the spirit meant by 'incentive' and apprehensive to find out, and looked out over the nether realm.

What had not a day prior been a peaceful and quiet landscape had transformed entirely into a scene of turmoil and horror. The spaces between the many buildings below were filled with what looked like people, mortal people, who clung to each other in an enormous mob that swarmed like a colony of bees. And even from his vantage point far above Jun could tell that not only were these people distressed, they were almost all wounded and in the breaks between groups of tightly huddled people he could see many lying flat on the ground.

"Those are the missing people from the Tokyo Station disaster," Jun cried almost immediately. He turned his gaze angrily on the Arbiter and stepped away from the railing. "You orchestrated the whole thing, you bastard, and you brought those poor people here to use as leverage to get me to work for you?"

The Arbiter looked at Jun benevolently. "Those people would have died if not for my intervention, and they may yet die if you choose to continue to defy me. However, should you decide to work cooperatively they will be released in due time, unharmed."

Jun stared at the spirit, feeling mutinous yet completely helpless. The Arbiter was toying with him now, forcing him into service with a false feeling of free will. Jun could disobey orders and watch those innocent mortals be murdered for it, but even then the Arbiter could force him to act through the shadow armor. Jun truly had no choice but to follow the orders that he was given.

"I have a mission for you," the Arbiter said at last, "and a fairly simple task for one of your skill. I need you to return to the mortal realm and find your allies, the others who bear armors. From them you must bring me the strongest, the most capable, as I need a mortal to command those below in the reconstruction of my spire."

"You plan to force them to act the way that you are forcing me to act?" Jun spat.

The Arbiter shrugged. "Perhaps, but perhaps not. We will see when the time is upon us."

"And if I fail?"

"Let us hope that it does not come to failure, but if it should you will understand the full measure of my wrath."

Jun slumped against the railing and stared out at the mass of people. They milled about, wandering through the alleys always in the same direction, as if they were all following a massive queue. Leading them along the way, barely visible along the perimeter of the mob, were a number of faintly glowing white spirits who seemed more as cattle herders than guides. Among the white spirits floated a larger number of black spirits, similar in appearance to the one that had led Jun to the Arbiter when he waked, and the humans shied away from them in fear.

"Where are they going?" Jun said.

"As I said, my spire must be rebuilt. Your friends destroyed it entirely when last we met. Those humans are being moved to the site of construction and will be responsible for reestablishing my empire in this world. The best and strongest among them will return here and assist me in establishing a hold on the mortal realm."

Jun regarded the Arbiter with a blank expression. "That's why I'm here," he reasoned. "That's why you brought me here, why you took control of the armor. That's why you tricked me into being alone, so you could kidnap me and control me and send me back home to destroy humanity."

"You took the armor that was rightfully mine, I would have taken you regardless of the state of my empire," the Arbiter replied and he walked back along the bannister. "But your strength makes you particularly valuable; there would be no sense in eliminating you when I can put you to such effective use."

Anger welled up in Jun again and his face flushed with heat. "I want to go back to my room," he said curtly. "And I'm going to need food more than once a day, fresh food and water, not the moldy junk you left for me when you brought me here."

"So it shall be," said the spirit. "I will summon you here at sundown."

With a wave of the Arbiter's hand the world collapsed once more, and in the next moment Jun was back in his room, dizzy and reeling. He collapsed against his bed and stared at the wall feeling helpless and alone.

Ϫ

It was dark when thick fog settled around Nasté's home. The night was quiet and moonless and the troopers, who had settled some hours before, were at ease in their beds. All but Shin were fast asleep and even the warrior of torrent was beginning to drift off, his mind racing with thoughts of the day, the preparations that the five of them had made for sudden battle, and the information that he and Toma had gathered from Jun's schoolmates.

He felt uneasy even as he lay listening to the sounds of the forest outside, even though he knew that nothing more could be done to help now. Shin understood that he needed to sleep and gather strength, but as tired as his body was his mind would not quit.

When he first heard Byakuen's low growl echo from the sitting room he thought that it was his imagination. But then the sound came again and Shin sat straight, his heart pounding against his chest, and waited. Again the sound came. Shin jumped from the bed and smacked Shu, who slept soundly in the bed beside his own, on the shoulder, then he darted from the room. He rushed through the hall, down the stairs, and spotted Byakuen near the back door.

The tiger was hunched down on his front paws and looked ready to strike. His hair stood on end and his tail was bushy and frazzled, and when Shin approached him the great cat pawed angrily at the door.

"What's your problem?"

Shin whirled about to face Shu, who stood looking as angry as he was tired, but as soon as the warrior of stone saw Byakuen's aggressive posture his mind came to him at once. Shu straightened, rushed to the window adjacent to the door, and peered through the glass.

"Go wake the others," Shin ordered. "This is it."

Shu nodded and rushed back up the stairs, and as Shin pushed the back door open to step outside he could hear Shu's cries carrying through the house. Knowing that the others would follow soon he produced his brightly glowing kanji orb and rushed off into the woods with Byakuen close on his heels.

It was not long before Shin arrived in a small clearing from which the dense fog seemed to flow. At once he stopped and stared, mouth gaping, at the five figures opposite him. They were clearly men dressed in dark clothes that blended in with the tree line but stood shoulder to shoulder in a line. Shin could see no weapons of any sort but that was not what worried him. What worried him was that the central figure of the five was Jun, whose expression read of anger and fear and a small degree of embarrassment.

Shin summoned forth his under gear and placed his hand on Byakuen's shoulder, as much to remind himself that the cat was there as to support his rapidly weakening knees.

"What is going on?" Shin said quietly. "Where did you go? Who are they?"

Jun stepped forward with his eyes on the ground. He wore his own under gear and his hands were clenched into fists at his side. When he stopped perhaps three yards away from where Shin stood he assumed a very relaxed, almost submissive posture and glanced to his left, then to his right, as though addressing the four men behind him, and then he looked at Shin directly.

"Don't hurt them," Jun said, his voice full of authority despite his passive posture, and as long as he spoke his eyes did not leave Shin's. "We need to keep them alive and unhurt."

Shin's face screwed up in confusion. He could not tell if Jun was addressing him of the other men, but the boy spoke so clearly, with such a strict tone, and maintained such focused eye contact that Shin could not believe that Jun was talking to anyone else.

"Jun, what's going on? Who are these people?" Shin pleaded. "What are you doing?"

Now Jun looked at the ground again but stood straight and proud. The tone of his voice when he spoke did not match the solemn expression on his face. He looked as though someone had died.

"His Excellency the Arbiter of Souls demands submission. His empire must be rebuilt and he demands the service of humans to secure his hold on the mortal world."

Again Shin was confused. Was Jun explaining the circumstance or issuing an order? The disparity between his voice and his body language was unnerving and unnatural, as though Jun was acting according to a mandate but continued trying to defy it as much as he could, like a child presenting himself to an executive. He voice rang loud and true but there was venom behind it that Shin could not explain.

At that moment Ryo, Shu, Toma, and Seiji burst into the clearing in full armor and brandishing their weapons, clearly ready for a fight. But Shin threw out his hand, stopping the four of them dead in their tracks, and as each of the troopers realized the strange truth of the situation he lowered his weapon in confusion.

It was Ryo who stepped forward, looking immeasurably irate, and when he spoke his voice seemed more of a growl than a yell.

"Is this what it's come to?" he cried. "Is this a cry for help?"

Jun looked up, startled and wide eyed, and his brow furrowed in a look of recognition. But the boy remained very quiet and looked like he was fighting to remain calm. He opened his mouth to speak once but before any sound came out he looked away. Then he looked at Shin.

"Don't hurt them."

Shin nodded at once and as Jun stepped back into the line of his men he summoned his armor forth. As if on cue the four men at Jun's side rushed forward, drawing thick bladed swords from black scabbards on their belts and the five troopers sprang into immediate action against them.

Jun stood back and watched the five troopers at work, fighting methodically against four very human, very weak men who the Arbiter had chosen from amongst the kidnapped disaster victims to accompany him on his mission. He was under strict orders to bring back the strongest of the five which, by physical measures would have been Shu, but by intellectual measures would have been Toma, but by willpower would have been Seiji. Each of them had strength in his own right and Jun wondered how he might manipulate the Arbiter's orders to his advantage.

But as he stood inactive the familiar sensation of oppression began to creep over his body and Jun knew that the Arbiter was growing impatient. His orders had been clear: bring back the strongest warrior; the one most capable of leading the enslaved mortals in the construction of the Arbiter's new spire, and the operation was to be covert and quick. Jun had already failed in two of the three objectives; he had been neither stealthy nor swift, and the Arbiter was apparently watching closely.

The armor formed around him with unexpected speed and the moment the plates settled Jun felt an undeniable urge to draw his weapons. In a flash they were out and though Jun forced his body to be still his mind raced and his head pounded. The Arbiter was furious, was pushing Jun to fight, and was forcing the thought of action into Jun's mind until they felt as instinct.

There came a point in this struggle when Jun could no longer tell what thoughts were his and what had been placed in his mind by the Arbiter. He was confused but determined not to act, regardless of his desire to do so, because he did not know if his actions would even be his own. He pushed it all back, suppressed thought and impulse and emotion, and watched the battle raging before him with all of the clarity that his free mind could afford him.

"Tokyo Station!" He cried suddenly, and the troopers halted action to stare at him. "He took me at Tokyo Station, he's forcing me to—"

There was a sudden pain in Jun's head that was so explosive that he reeled and dropped to his knees. The glaives fell to the ground with a clatter and the young warrior clutched at his throbbing temples, oblivious to what action took place around him. He heard the Arbiter's voice in his head screaming at him to submit but the noise and the agony made Jun's body numb.

As the troopers realized that Jun had fallen and recognized the meaning of his words they rushed to dispatch the still fighting men. With renewed focus and a clear goal, the warriors knocked their opponents away and watched as they landed on the ground. As one they began their move to Jun's aid but understood that they were too late as Jun, and the four humans who had appeared with him, disappeared in a blur of black haze.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The moment Jun's feet touched ground there was an enormous crack and a pressure in his chest that felt as though he had been slammed by a major league batter. He fell back, breathless and senseless, and it was not until he opened his eyes that the pain hit. His body felt on fire, he gasped for air, his hearing returned, and the sound of screaming drowned out his rasping breath.

He heard the Arbiter's irate yelling, though the words were almost completely unintelligible, and ringing out from behind Jun's back came terrified wails from what sounded like a woman. At first Jun thought that perhaps the two were arguing but as he closed his eyes and listened closely he understood that they were yelling against each other and their words were directed at him.

"How dare you defy me?" Screamed the Arbiter, and as Jun looked at him from his place on the floor the spirit had raised his hand as to strike him again. "Do these peoples' lives mean nothing to you, boy? I warned you!"

Jun followed with his eyes as the Arbiter turned his palm to the left, redirecting his attack to where the four men who had accompanied Jun on his mission stood perfectly still and expressionless. Jun knew at once that the four remained under the Arbiter's control; even as the spirit unleashed a bright hot bolt of energy from his hand they did not move. As one they fell into a stinking, blistered heap onto the ground where their bodies lay smoldering and bloody and quite dead.

The wailing behind Jun stopped for a moment, stunned, before it erupted again as a terrified scream followed by choked sobs and incoherent pleading. It was at this point that Jun understood that whoever stood behind him was not under the spirit's control, she was lucid and very well aware of the danger, she was mortified, and judging by the way the Arbiter glared over Jun's prostrate body at her she knew that death was imminent.

Jun pushed himself up against the searing pain in his chest, shook the dizziness out of his head, and rolled onto his side to get a look at the woman behind him. He stared at her for a long moment as if his mind was incapable of processing the tear-stained, dirt streaked face, and when at last he recognized her he caught his breath and reeled, disappointed and angry. It was Chiharu, his distant classmate and perhaps the last person that he had hoped to see, and it seemed that she was bound and restrained by two massive black spirits.

"Jun!" she screamed. "Help me!"

Jun breathed deep, got to his feet, and though he could feel his knees shaking he stood tall and defiant against the Arbiter. His body was in full rebellion and breath would not come to him as easily as he would have liked, but all the same as he stared the Arbiter down his mind was working frantically to formulate some kind of plan.

"Do you want her to die as well? Grovel! Beg my forgiveness for your insolence, whelp!"

Jun knelt at once, turned his face to the ground, and kept his eyes up to gather information. The Arbiter was not wearing the armor, they were on the same platform where the Arbiter had called him twice before. The box containing Jun's yoroi orb was nowhere near the place where the spirit stood.

"What have you to say for yourself?" roared the Arbiter.

Jun bowed despite his disgust, bending low at the waist and staying in the position for a long time. But as he bowed he glanced behind him, looking once to Chiharu and then past her to where the pedestal stood, unguarded but for the two holding Chiharu back, and his heart leapt with hope.

He tried to plot an escape route. If he could move quickly enough to release Chiharu, grab the orb, and find the exit before the Arbiter could react then he could be home free. But Jun knew at once that such a plan would be futile; the Arbiter could move anywhere in the tower in the blink of an eye, and even if Jun could find the way down from the platform he did not know the way out of the tower as a whole. They were many stories above the ground; Jun recalled the long drop to the ground below.

"I didn't realize I was out of line," Jun said slowly, as much to buy some time as to try and placate the enraged spirit. "I was worried that I wouldn't be able to take the five of them at once, I wanted the men you sent with me to wear them out."

Jun grimaced as the words left his mouth but he kept talking all the same, working to distract the Arbiter while he thought. The prospect of jumping from the tower was terrifying but it seemed the only reasonable way to escape, and if Jun could get the yoroi ball he would be able to summon his armor and withstand the long fall. Even if the Arbiter still inhabited the armor the move would get Chiharu out of the place and she could run, perhaps she could get help.

"My emotions got the better of me and I—"

Jun was interrupted by another strike, and this time he felt the pain acutely. He sprawled unceremoniously across the floor and felt his back collide with what must have been Chiharu's legs because she let out a squeal more becoming of an animal than a girl. Jun laid there for a long time and played his desperate, stupid plan over in his mind. He would jump up, wrench Chiharu away from the spirits that held her, break for the yoroi orb, dive over the side of the balcony, and hope that the landing was soft.

But he was hurt and he could not tell how badly, he could not be sure that the spirits would relinquish their hold on Chiharu regardless of how hard he pulled at her, and there was no way he could know whether the kanji orb was in the box or if the Arbiter had it on his person. Doubt rolled through Jun's mind and his stomach fluttered with uncertainty.

With a deep breath Jun pushed the thoughts from his mind. Another breath forced relaxation.

In a flash the young warrior was on his feet, though immediately he regretted the sudden explosive movement. As he turned to grab Chiharu his vision swam and at least two blurry, frightened girls were screaming incoherently at him. She sounded far away, like she was yelling in a long tunnel, and even as he reached out for her tiny black specks began floating through his field of view.

It was with little grace that Jun lurched forward and grasped her around the waist in a move that was as much a body check as it was a heroic sweep, lifted her off of her feet, and pivoted toward the pedestal. Behind him he could hear the Arbiter burst into action and as he rushed forward a thousand bolts of white light streaked past, blowing holes in the floor and the bannister where they connected. The two spirits who had been holding on to Chiharu gave chase. Chiharu continued to wail.

Two long running strides brought Jun to the pedestal where he tore the box from its stand without so much as looking inside. Then, frantic and nauseous, he turned toward the nearest banner and bolted. A step from the banner with his spirits high with thoughts of escape, Jun felt a sudden searing pain in his back. He fell as much as jumped from the building with the Arbiter's screams echoing after.

The stunned trooper barely recalled that he held the small wooden box. Between Chiharu's terrified screaming, the wind rushing past as they fell, and the numbness of his body he could scarcely concentrate at all. He felt numb all over and his mind was utterly blank. It was without thought that he opened the box clumsily and breathed a sigh of relief that the orb was safely inside, glowing bright in the face of danger.

Chiharu continued to cry and scream though by now there was no telling what she was saying. When Jun heard her begin repeating that she did not want to die he clamped his free hand over her mouth and held it tight, and she looked at him mutinously.

"It's going to be okay," Jun said, as much to reassure himself as to comfort her.

Jun clutched his yoroi ball tightly and began to summon his armor, but he was not fast enough. A sudden sting in his feet and legs let him know that they made contact and then a sensation of bone chilling cold washed over him. For a moment it felt that they were still falling but their speed slowed rapidly.

When Jun opened his eyes he knew that they had hit water.

It was murky, green tinted stuff that reminded Jun strikingly of swimming in a dirty lake. But it was cold and crisp and had had a similar effect on his fuzzy mind as jumping into a vat of ice, and when he finally broke the surface his head was clear and sharp and the world seemed overcome with thoughtful silence.

Chiharu wailed.

"They're dead! They're dead! He killed them! They're dead, oh God, oh God! Where are we? Who was he? Why did he kill them? They're dead! You could have killed me! Where are we? What is going on?"

Nasté was never so hysterical, Jun thought dryly as he looked around. They had entered the water in a narrow channel that ran between two squat structures, a lucky break by any measure, and there was no life to be seen anywhere in the immediate vicinity. From the tower, however, poured a mob of black spirits like ants fleeing their hill, and Jun understood that they needed to move.

"Chiharu, we have to go," he said, his eyes still locked on the swarming spirits.

"They're dead! He killed those people, they didn't do anything! Did you see it? Did you see them? They were bloody heaps! They were just piles of meat! Didn't you see them? Don't you care?"

"Chiharu!" Jun yelled, perhaps more angrily than he had meant, and Chiharu's voice stopped mid-cry. Then she stared at him and looked as though she was about to burst into tears. "We have to get out of here," Jun continued, taking care to speak softly. "I know they died, I saw them die, but they're gone now and we have to worry about ourselves. We have to find somewhere to hide otherwise we're going to end up in the same mess as those people. Do you understand me?"

She nodded frantically.

"Good."

The two made their way to the lip of the channel, climbed out of the water, and ran aimlessly through the corridors between buildings. Jun's mind was set on finding a defensible place to hide until he could think of a better plan, but once in a while he felt Chiharu pulling against his left hand as she stumbled or slowed. In his right hand the yoroi ball burned hot against his closed palm.

Jun knew that the situation was far more serious than he had ever dreamed. Every time he blinked he saw the bloodied mess that had been his four accomplices and he felt certain that more were dying every minute. Chiharu had somehow stumbled into the nether realm, apparently completely unaware of what kind of danger she was in and clueless about Jun's identity as an armor bearer. The troopers had seemed more angry than sympathetic and Jun could not be certain whether they would come to find him. And perhaps the worst thing of all was that Jun felt helpless and remained unable to call his armor for fear that the Arbiter might still control him through it.

"Here!"

Jun barely heard the words come out of his mouth and he dove to the right, through a small hole in the foundation of a particularly dilapidated building, and into a dark room. Chiharu stumbled behind him still clinging to his arm and Jun could hear her whimpering quietly as he moved around the space.

"Sit down," he said. "I'm going to go make sure this place is safe, we don't want to hide somewhere that's already occupied." Then, in an undertone, he muttered, "But by the looks of it I think we're good."

The search of the dark building was promising; the place was completely void of any life and, in fact, was empty of anything at all. So he returned to Chiharu's side with tentatively high spirits, sat on the ground before her with a long sigh of relief, and felt the sudden overwhelming urge to sleep.

"Those people," Chiharu said, "those people didn't do anything wrong."

Her voice had changed completely since the last time she spoke. It was quiet, almost inaudible, and did not waver at all. She stared at a spot on the ground in front of her with unblinking eyes, her hands lay limp in her lap, and her shoulders were slightly slumped.

"I know," Jun said, but he did not look at her.

But Chiharu looked at him, quite suddenly and with anger in her eyes. Jun was startled by the change in mood and jumped slightly before forcing himself to relax. He was still anxious, his body was ready to run, and every unexpected movement was a threat.

"Where are we?" she asked sternly. "And why? What did that man, thing, what did he want?"

Jun furrowed his brow and rested his chin on his hand. "I think a better question might be 'what the hell are you doing here?" he said and matched Chiharu's tone. "Because you should never have been brought here, and I can't help but think you did something to provoke someone or said something that someone didn't like. So what? What happened?"

Chiharu looked away and seemed almost embarrassed. "I don't remember."

"I don't believe that for a second," Jun snapped. "I'll tell you what, we're in a lot of trouble here and if you don't tell me how you ended up in this mess then I can't help you get out of it."

"I don't remember how I got here," Chiharu repeated quietly. "But the last thing that I do remember were these two men, they were dressed in police uniforms and they were looking for you. They approached me, God it must have been a couple of days ago, and asked if I knew you, they said that you were missing and that they needed to ask a few questions."

"And you told them?"

She slumped forward, planted her face firmly in her hands, and remained very silent.

"What did you tell them?" Jun said again.

"I told them that I knew you really well," she said and swallowed hard. "I told them that we were going steady."

Jun covered his face with his palm and heaved a sigh. It was not so much that he had not expected the answer as he had expected her to be more tactful about who she lied to. There was little question among her closest friends that she had, in fact, wanted to comply with Jun's months-ago request for an irresponsible evening out and that she had only declined his request because he refused to commit to any kind of relationship with her. He refused to commit to any kind of relationship with anyone, and it was no secret that Chiharu still wanted in.

"You really are a damned idiot, you know that?"

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I just thought that I could help, you know? Like maybe they had some information on where you were. You didn't show up for work at all last week and I was worried that maybe you—"

"I was on vacation, Chiharu," Jun replied venomously. "On holiday. Scheduled. Time off. It does happen once in a while. Those goons weren't police officers they were representatives of the asshole that just tried to kill the both of us. If you had given any thought to what you say to people you might not have ended up in this stupid situation and I wouldn't have to deal with bailing you out."

Chiharu said nothing for a while. She knew that she had made a mistake and understood, even expected Jun's reaction. If anything she thought that he might have been angrier. So when she finally spoke again she did so very quietly, passively, and did not honestly expect him to answer.

"Where are we?"

"We're in youja-kai," Jun said flatly, and it seemed that he had all but forgotten his anger.

Jun was distracted, and quite obviously so. He stared hard at the yoroi ball now lying on the ground before him and occasionally rolled it between his fingers looking like he was studying a difficult text. He looked vaguely worried.

"What is youja-kai?" Chiharu continued, though hesitantly.

"The place that spirits go when their bodies are gone," Jun replied automatically.

Chiharu watched him rolling the ball around and leaned forward curiously. She could not understand why he might be paying more attention to such an odd little trinket than he was to her, especially given that their circumstances were completely unknown to her.

"What's with the marble?" she asked, and pointed at the yoroi ball. "And why is it glowing?"

Jun stared at the orb for a long time. He was already preoccupied by the situation, with dealing with Chiharu and the numbness and pain creeping back over his body, and now his yoroi ball was apparently broken.

He had not noticed in the excitement of the escape, but now that he was looking closely there was an unmistakable crack in the orb. It was small, thin, and radiated out from the sphere's center like tiny bolts of forked lightning. The character of fortitude was blurred and distorted by the lines. Jun had never seen this before. He had never heard the other troopers as much as mention the possibility of a fractured orb.

"Jun?"

"I can't tell you that," he said and scooped the orb into his hand.

"Why not?" Chiharu replied, offended.

"You're already in over your head," Jun said and stuffed the orb into the pocket of his jumper. Then he stood and began to pace restlessly around the room.

Chiharu watched this with curiosity. She had never seen Jun so emotional before and had never imagined that he could be so upset about anything. Certainly he made it clear to her that she should keep away from him, but he had never seemed so angry at her persistence.

"You saved me," she said after a while and Jun stopped walking as soon as the words were spoken. He stared at her, his eyes slightly wide and his mouth open with curiosity.

"Don't worry about it," he said flatly.

Chiharu stood then and approached Jun with some degree of caution, then stopped a yard or two away with a long sigh. Her expression was severe, though not altogether angry, and when she spoke again she seemed full of authority.

"You jumped off of that building like it was nothing," she said. "How did you know we wouldn't be killed?"

"I didn't," Jun said automatically.

"And when you got me away from those things you moved like you've done this sort of thing before."

Jun stared at her, stone faced. Clearly she was going somewhere with her statements though Jun could not be sure where. All he knew was that the less she knew about him and the armor the safer she would be, and the less he would have to deal with her.

"You're all secretive all the time," Chiharu said and now she began to pace in a line before Jun. She looked and sounded like a television detective during an investigation, working to her point with confidence in her evidence. "You don't talk about your life outside of work. You don't have close friends. You refuse to enter into relationships with girls, you turned me down. But you think on your feet and you always act like nothing is ever wrong, even when things are terrible. Then you rescue me and jump off a building higher than any in Shinjuku. Now you're acting like it's no big deal, like it was some every day thing. You don't even seem worried about it. Just, 'oh I jumped off a building, let me stare at this marble for a while but I won't tell you about it;' never mind that we're apparently not even on Earth anymore!"

"Well," Jun said sheepishly, "technically we are still on Earth."

Chiharu looked mutinous.

"Look, we can't stay here for long so I think you ought to get some rest, okay?"

Chiharu did not look away.

"I'll explain later."

"So what are you going to do, then?" she said.

Jun shrugged, sat against the wall, and crossed his arms over his increasingly uncomfortable chest. He wondered how badly he had been wounded but dared not check himself while Chiharu was watching.

"I'm going to keep watch and try to think of a plan," Jun said. "Go to sleep, Chiharu."

The girl sighed and sat down on the ground where she stood. Her eyes never left Jun as she lay down, and she watched him for a long while as she began to doze. He poked absently at his chest and snuck occasional peeks down the front of his jumper, and once he glanced at her as if trying to make certain that his movements were secret. The last thing Chiharu recalled before she fell asleep was Jun producing the orb from his jumper, laying it delicately on the ground, and staring at it with his chin on his palm.

Ϫ

The night passed in a flurry of activity as the troopers prepared to leave for Tokyo. There had been little talk since Jun's appearance. They had been startled by his behavior, by his words, and by his body language that had seemed so unlike him. He was rigid and passive and seemed without thought of his own, at least until the point at which he seemed to break completely free just before his disappearance.

It was decided shortly after that that the troopers would go to Tokyo Station if only to investigate the area for signs of youja activity. If it was true that Jun had been taken at that spot then there should be some kind of portal. Perhaps if they could locate that place they could go through as well, and once in the nether realm they could use their yoroi orbs to locate their missing friend.

Perhaps the most visibly upset of the group was Seiji, who rushed around in his own right while pushing the others to move faster. He would not say what was so troubling about the situation and kept largely to himself, and even as the party crowded into Nasté's car for the long drive he seemed tense and anxious.

It was only after entering Shinjuku that anyone spoke.

"I just don't understand it," Nasté said, and the troopers looked at her with startled and curious expressions. "I don't understand why it was that he acted so strangely."

"He was being controlled," Seiji said darkly. "His body was not his own, and if the process was anything like that which happened to me, his mind was probably going as well."

"What do you mean?" asked Nasté.

"He was losing control of his armor, it's the only thing that makes any sense," Seiji replied.

"Agreed," said Toma. "He was terrified when he stormed out of your house, Nasté, absolutely terrified. Can you imagine how one of us might feel if our armor was suddenly working against us? I don't think I'd know how to handle it, I'd probably try and get away, too."

"We just have to hope that it's actually a problem with him and not a problem with the armor," Ryo added. "Because we can fix problems with Jun, but we can't do anything if there's something seriously wrong with the armor."

"I'd venture to say that it's almost certainly a problem with him," Shu said hastily. "Because if what Nasté told us about his seeing things is right then he must have a couple of screws loose, right? If that's the case he could think lots of stuff is going on and that could be causing him to act weird."

"I think it was a plant," said Shin, and Seiji nodded curtly his agreement. "That spirit we defeated last year must have been angry, must still have wanted Jun's armor, and so he must have put thoughts into Jun's head that would make him vulnerable and cause him to isolate himself from us. We all saw that Jun couldn't handle that guy on his own so I wouldn't be surprised if the spirit waited for the right moment, when Jun was alone and too upset to think straight, to take him."

"And if the bearer of an armor lacks confidence and faith in his virtue then his armor won't act according to his will," Seiji added smartly.

When Nasté parked a block from Tokyo Station the troopers could find no sign of a struggle. Everything was as it should be; construction barriers surrounded the perimeter of the site, heavy building equipment sat around a half-erect building, and piles of supplies were locked and chained to secure posts. There was no one around except for the six of them, but even still they felt uncomfortable as they began scouring the area for clues.

After a while Toma sat against a portion of wall that faced into the city and looked up. He knew that they would find nothing if they continued looking where they were, though he did not want to distract the others from their search if he could not suggest a different idea. So he thought and stared at the sky, then let his eyes wander for a while until at length they fell on a multi-story apartment building across the street and at a diagonal from the front of the station. There was a fire escape in the alley.

"Hey!" Toma cried as he stood and rounded on the still searching troopers. "Hey, I've got an idea!"

The others gathered round looking tired and frustrated with their fruitless search.

"What makes us think that Jun would be satisfied looking at this place from the ground?" Toma said excitedly and the pointed to the structure across the way. "I bet you anything that he was on top of that apartment building looking down. He loves high places, places where he can see everything around him. Why don't we go check up there?"

The troopers shrugged and shot glances between each other. It seemed that they all shared the same sentiment; they knew they would find nothing where they looked and Toma's suggestion seemed as logical as any that they could come up with. So the troupe sneaked across the street and into the space between buildings, climbed as quietly as they could up the fire escape, and congregated on the rooftop.

"It's got a good view," Nasté said as she walked the perimeter. "I see what Toma meant."

When the group peered over the sides of the building they knew that Nasté was right. The place afforded them a panoramic view of Shinjuku and it seemed as though they could see for miles in any direction all around. Jun could have sat here for hours watching the reconstruction of the train station or counting the cars that passed by and no one would ever have known that he was there. It was a place of solitude and quiet.

"Here!" Cried Shin at length, and as the others gathered round he pointed to a small spot near the roof's edge. "It's a burn mark, like there was a little fire here."

"You think that's where he was taken?" asked Ryo skeptically.

Shin shrugged. When Jun had disappeared last time there seemed to be no fire, no burning of any kind, only a flash of black mist as he blurred into nothingness. But all the same the mark on the roof was unnatural and dark.

"It's the best guess we have, right now," Shin said. "Now let's find our way in."

Ϫ

Jun woke with a start to the sound of a thousand slow beating drums. The noise was distant, even, and low in its tone like a bass. As it beat its quick time the sound seemed not to move at all, it did not grow louder and did not grow softer, but still somehow Jun knew that its source was moving.

As he peered out of the crack in the shelter's siding he saw that the sky was bright with daylight and he wondered how long he had been asleep. He had not meant to doze and, in fact, did not recall doing so. Last he remembered he had been awake waiting for some time for Chiharu to drift off and after she grew quiet and still he began assessing the wounds that he had sustained from his encounter with the Arbiter.

There had been nothing of any particular severity; small localized blistering where the white hot bolts had struck, a bouquet of dark blue and brown bloomed over his chest and stomach, and his legs ached like he had run a marathon after a month away from the sport. He was tired by the time he had completed his initial check, had laid his head against the wall, and stared at his yoroi ball while pondering its sudden fracture. It must have been then that he fell asleep.

He poked his head out of the crack in the wall and looked both ways down the corridor between buildings. The space was empty but the drumming sound seemed to echo in it, sounding louder and clearer in the outdoors.

It was the dull clunk of metal on stone, Jun recognized almost at once, and what had seemed like a single long-held tone inside the building now sounded like footsteps marching in time; synchronized enough to pass as one entity but separate still. It was the sound of an army on the move.

Jun wondered about this for a long while as he leaned against the wall. The noise was so reminiscent of Arago's youja foot soldiers that he felt a nervous shiver in his gut, but rationally there could be no way that such spirits would still be around, could there? Jun supposed that it was possible for the Arbiter to dress his spirits in some kind of armor but he could not be afraid of them; those spirits were too inept and incapable, especially without a strong commander at their head.

With his head full of thoughts Jun stepped out of the building and made his way tentatively down the path. He did not recall the path down which he had led Chiharu the evening prior but hoped that he might be able to catch a glimpse of what was making such an awful racket. He walked slowly and with deliberate steps, taking great care to stay as quiet as he could, and poked his head around the corner stealthily before turning down another corridor.

He repeated the process, walking carefully down the path until he reached a four-way intersection. There was nothing directly across the way, an empty alley that ended at the back of a dark building, and nothing down the left path either. But when Jun turned his head to the right his heart jumped to his throat and he fought the sudden weakness in his knees.

Two youja foot soldiers clad in anciently styled olive green armor marched down the way with their backs toward Jun. One held a long staff tipped with a sharp thin blade while the other was armed with a kusarigama, a chain sickle with a heavy iron weight on its end, which was bound and hanging at its hip. The two marched on with purpose down the path, their metal boots clanking against the stone path with a noise eerily similar to that in the distance.

As Jun pressed his back to the wall, his breath burning in his lungs, he realized that the distant noise was in fact youja foot soldiers and that they were more than likely searching for Chiharu and him. So he turned and bolted back down the way, back toward the shelter with little care for how much noise he made, and as soon as he passed through the door he dove to Chiharu's side and shook her violently.

"Chiharu, wake up! Wake up now!" he cried, and shook her again. "Damn it, you lazy woman, wake up!"

Chiharu's eyes fluttered open and she stared at Jun as if confused by his presence. "Jun? Did we have a sleepover?"

"No! Get up!" Jun replied urgently despite Chiharu's continued naivety. It seemed in the moment that she did not remember their predicament: perhaps she was still too tired. "There are foot soldiers outside, they're going to find us if we don't get out of here. We have to move right now."

Chiharu sat up suddenly with wide eyes and stared at Jun with realization. Then she jumped to her feet and looked around with clear panic. "Where are they? Who? What are foot soldiers? Where are we going to go?"

Jun grasped her by the wrist and yanked her from the space. If he was honest with himself he had no idea where he would lead them. The only thing that he could be certain about was that they had to get as far away from that place as they could and he did not want to alarm Chiharu any more than he already had, lest she become hysterical again.

He wondered vaguely as he ran if the soldiers were tracking them somehow, if perhaps the yoroi ball was sending some kind of signal to them which they could follow back to him. Or maybe the Arbiter was able to track Jun himself, or maybe Jun's course of action and subsequent hiding place had been predictable.

"Where are we going?" Chiharu yelled.

"Be quiet!"

Chiharu clenched her jaw and continued running behind Jun. They were moving fast enough that the buildings surrounding them passed by in a blur, and at intersections she could see tall dark figures who seemed more like shadows than armor-clad sentinels. Some of these figures stared at them dumbly as they passed, some of them gave pursuit, and some of them cried out, a sound that seemed more like a grunt than any actual language, and brandished their weapons.

After a while and with a significant number of armed guards on their heels, Jun and Chiharu broke free of the block of structures through which they had been running and into a wide open space. Some hundred yards or so away sat another block of buildings and bisecting the empty space was a long narrow channel.

Jun stopped. Over the tops of the buildings and some way in the distance rose the black spire, half built and enormous. The progress made on the thing was astounding; in a matter of days the spire had completely transformed from a pile of broken rubble.

"So much for going that way," Jun grumbled, and took off to the right.

They ran for a long time, following the path of the channel, and as they went a host of foot soldiers collected at their backs. Chiharu wondered whether Jun knew where he was going, how he knew where to run, and how he could remain so composed when faced with such a strange and apparently dangerous situation. She knew that if he was not there she would have fallen apart a long time ago.

At last they came to a tall wooden gate surrounding a building that seemed to have fallen apart from the top down. An enormous hole had been torn in its roof, a number of walls were completely missing; the only part of the building that seemed intact was the bottom level. When Jun stopped here and looked back his expression read of sudden calm.

"What's going on?" Chiharu asked.

"They'll be too afraid to come into this compound," Jun said, and he pulled Chiharu closer to the gate. As he did so he pushed the thing open and beckoned for her to enter. "This place is old, really old, and I can virtually guarantee that none of the spirits in this world will get close to that building. Go there and find a defensible place to hide."

Chiharu stepped into the gate and rounded back on Jun, who had yet to step through. She watched as he stared down the path they had just run and then looked to the ground as he produced the yoroi ball from his pocket. Then he held it out to her and looked at her gravely.

"You need to hold on to this," he said.

"What?"

"They're looking for me, those spirits, they don't care about you. I don't mean to sound rude or arrogant, but that's just how it is, and I know that if I stay with you then I'll be putting you in a lot of danger. Plus I can't do what I need to do with you tagging along; you'll just hold me back."

"You're leaving me?"

Jun nodded and glanced behind again. "I've got someone here that I need to find. In the meantime, you stay here. There are people who are coming to look for me, good people, and strong people. They'll be able to track you through this orb, and once they find you then you'll be safe. You'll know it's them because they'll have matching orbs."

Chiharu looked angry but took the orb from Jun all the same. "Who are you going to find?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Jun said, then turned as though ready to rush off. He stopped short when Chiharu spoke again.

"Jun," she said, "this is going to sound really stupid, but are you some kind of superhero or something?"

His face screwed up with confusion and, even in the tense moment, he could have laughed. "No," he said flatly, and turned again to leave. Two steps down the road he turned back, though, and seemed thoughtful. "But if it helps you feel better, yes."

With that, Jun took off down the path in search of the Guardian of Souls, the white and benevolent spirit who had helped him in his last encounter with the Arbiter. Jun had seen the Guardian's servant spirits mingling amongst the mortals prior to his ill-fated mission to the mortal world and if the spirits were still around then certainly the Guardian must be near.

Jun understood that if answers were to be had the Guardian would have them, but still he did not even know where to begin looking. He reasoned that if he could find one of the servant spirits again he could convince it to lead him to the Guardian proper, and then perhaps he could figure out what had led him to this point. After all, the Guardian seemed to know a lot about Jun's armor, and he seemed not to like it at all.


	10. Chapter 10

NOTE: okay, so slow was an understatement. Between grad classes, teaching a high school creative writing class, work, and juggling family commitments I've had virtually no time to write at all. But here, created in 15 minute writing segments once every few days, is the next installment. Things are beginning to calm down for me, so I'm hoping to have more nights like tonight where I can be up til the wee hours and spend them working for you guys. If anyone is still around, thanks for sticking with me through the long wait.

Chapter 10

Jun prowled around the outside of the black spire, darting between the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings and watching as the wounded and exhausted humans slaved away making progress on the enormous tower that seemed impossibly fast. Jun knew that the people before him had not rested since work began and he wondered as he stared at them how such an enormous effort could be sustained, especially considering the physical condition that the workers were in.

Clearly these people were victims of a disaster. Their bodies were covered by bruises, scratches, and cuts of every size and degree of severity. Blood caked thick on their skin and their worn out clothing hung in tattered strips on their slight frames. They did not speak, in fact they made no noise at all, and they never looked up from the ground even when carrying enormous loads of stone. They seemed to be in a trance, completely mindless and without capacity to feel, emotionally or physically, because if they could feel anything Jun was certain that they would not be working.

Jun had come to this place with purpose, not to ogle the lost disaster victims slaving away over the construction of the tower. He had come to this place to search for a prime spirit that he knew as the Guardian of Souls, whose white glowing servants Jun had last seen near the humans. It was Jun's goal to find one of these servants, who he knew to be good, and convince it to lead him to its master.

It did not take long for Jun to find what he was looking for. As he rounded a corner and peered down the long corridor between buildings he caught a flash of white as a figure turned down a way leading back toward the tower. He knew beyond doubt that this was one of the good spirits because the glow that followed its incorporeal form had been unmistakably gold.

With renewed focus he started after it, walking with long strides and checking carefully for foot soldiers at every one of many intersections. The area was crawling with them; they patrolled almost every alley at the spire's perimeter and no exit from the clearing in which the tower sat was without sentinel. Only the cross streets, including the one that Jun was presently walking down, were empty.

At last Jun came to the street down which the spirit had moved and as he peered down the way he could see it floating along some distance down the path. It was oblivious that Jun was behind it.

Jun quickened his step and began closing the distance separating him from many much needed answers. As he walked his mind began to race with memories of the benevolent Guardian and his heart swelled with hope. Before he knew what he was doing he was running at full sprint, and moments later caught up with the spirit as it passed through a wide intersection.

"I'm looking for your master," Jun said quickly as he walked in step beside the white spectre. "I need to speak with the Guardian, there's been a problem."

The spirit continued along, offering no indication that it recognized that Jun was even there. Jun remembered then that the last time he had interacted with these beings he had had to identify himself with the yoroi ball before they would acknowledge him. Perhaps now was no different, perhaps these spirits owed some allegiance to the armor.

"My name is Jun," he said, almost frantic now. The spirit stopped immediately and rounded to face him. "I bear the armor—"

Jun stopped quite suddenly and stared blankly at the spirit. The thing was no longer looking at him. It was looking past him, back down the way that they had come moments earlier, and Jun understood that something had crept up behind. Yet Jun dared not turn around; it could be a human who had escaped, perhaps a foot soldier who was checking to see what a human was doing away from the work site.

At last he turned and his breath caught tight in his throat. He was staring at a broad black robed chest, and as his eyes moved up its form his heart sank low in his stomach. He wished very much that he had been facing a foot soldier, or an angry Chiharu, or the other troopers, but instead was standing two inches from the Arbiter himself.

"It was foolish for you to return to this place," said the Arbiter in an even and nonjudgmental tone. "Where is the armor orb?"

"I guess I lost it."

"You will wish you had lost it before I am through with you," growled the Arbiter, and with a wave of his hand a swarm of youja soldiers and jet black spirits poured from every path until Jun found himself surrounded, unarmed and alone, and completely unprepared to face such an onslaught.

The Arbiter's eyes seemed to smile. "Yes," said the spirit, "you will tell me where you have hidden it."

Ϫ

Chiharu spent the days after Jun left her feeling alone and afraid, huddled beneath a wooden staircase staring at the yoroi orb. She had spent most of the first day waiting hopefully for Jun to return. At nightfall on the second day she began to worry. But now, on the third day after his departure, Chiharu was beginning to feel genuinely afraid. Her fear amplified by exhaustion and hunter, the only thing that kept her from setting out to search for her lost companion was the knowledge that outside of the compound gates lurked an army of youja soldiers. Jun had trusted her with his strange broken marble, and was counting on her not to get caught.

She had explored the massive place in her days alone, as much to get a lay of the land as to pass the time until Jun returned. She had wandered through all of the buildings and explored every hallway and room that she could find. The largest of the three buildings was in particularly bad shape; walls were broken, holes gaped in the floor so deep that she could not see the other side. Crimson ceramic roof tiles littered the ground around the building's entrance and the foundation was beginning to crumble; this was where Chiharu found her most recent hiding spot.

That night she sat in the open on a high stair, staring uncertainly between the strangely colored nether world sky and the black tower looming in the distance. She had a bad feeling about that place; she wondered how a spire could go from a single story to twenty or more in a matter of days. And though the place certainly was unnatural in its construction it did not seem inherently bad; it was simply a building that had gone up quickly. But all the same her stomach fluttered whenever she looked its way.

Chiharu relegated herself to staring at the yoroi ball as she rolled it absently between her fingers and wondering if Jun was okay, if the two of them would ever find their way back home. She wondered if Jun's friends would find her and how she might know that it was them. He said that they would have orbs that matched his, though she was not certain how she would know that they were carrying them; how does a person under siege demand that a complete stranger, or many complete strangers as they case seemed, produce proof of identification?

She went to bed that night with a mounting sense of dread and her discomfort, both physical and mental, would not let her drift off to sleep.

As the time passed she began to wonder if perhaps Jun was angry with her because she had lied to the policemen, or what she thought were policemen, about her status with him. Perhaps he was staying away to punish her. But though he had every right to be angry with her she never felt like he actually was, she never believed that he had the capacity to be so cruel.

She dozed feeling uncertain about everything, uncertain about herself and her motives, the decisions that had brought her to this place, and about what she hoped would come of it all. The only thing she could decide was that she wanted to get home alive; anything else that happened or came of the whole experience could be dealt with later.

Chiharu could not say for certain when it was that she realized that there were people milling about outside of her hiding place. Their voices were faint but unmistakably human, speaking in hushed tones and in words that sounded vaguely familiar, though she could not make out the words. It could have been the sleepy haze or some panic built over the last days spent alone, but Chiharu was frightened by the sound.

Noiselessly and with one ear always focused on the voices, Chiharu moved away from the hole that served as the entrance to her hovel and crouched in a dark shadow beneath the stairs. There she sat, watching intently as shadows passed the entrance, blocking out the dim nether realm light. They looked almost as one long and jagged form, broken only by small slivers of orange light.

When the shadows passed Chiharu breathed a long sigh of relief and felt every muscle in her body relax. The voices were growing quiet again.

But then they stopped altogether and Chiharu felt panic again. A pointy shadow poked its head through the entrance hole of her hovel and stood there for a long time, apparently peering through the darkness around the space. Chiharu wondered what it was, how it might look in the light. It seemed like a monster in silhouette.

"Shu, you idiot," said the voice, "the armor is resonating here. After this spot it dies off again."

"It's not my fault," came the angry response from who Chiharu assumed was Shu, "I don't want to be here at all. Leave it to Jun to pick the most inhospitable-"

"That's enough," came a third voice, and it sounded angry like a parent scolding an unruly child. "He did the right thing in coming here, there aren't any soldiers anywhere near this place. Had he gone anywhere else he'd have been overcome by sheer numbers."

The realization that these people were discussing Jun hit Chiharu like a lead anvil. At once she produced the fractured orb from her pocket, where she had completely forgotten about it, and stared dumbly as it glowed a faint black light. It pulsed warm in her hand, felt comfortable to her, and tentatively she regarded the shadow in the door.

It took much more effort than she ever thought it would to call out for help, and after three deep breaths and one utterly failed attempt at speech that came out as a choke as the words caught fat in her throat, Chiharu managed to squeak "Help!"

At once the shadows burst into motion. Three rushed toward Chiharu and two stayed near the door. They moved in near silence, with fluid motion that made Chiharu wonder if perhaps she was dreaming, but when three armored men wielding heavy blades and wearing what seemed like angry expressions hovered over her she grew wide eyed and terrified.

"Who the hell are you?" said the voice she recognized as Shu.

Chiharu wanted to speak but could scarcely even breathe. These had to be the people that Jun was talking about, the friends who had come to rescue her, but they were wearing such strange clothes and seemed so crude; how could it be that such men were good?

The irate Shu bent low and scrutinized her through the faceplate of his enormous orange helmet with a gaze as hard as stone. He stared at her as though she wasn't even human and stayed that way for a long time, but at last he relented as another figure moved in behind, clapped him hard on the shoulder, and practically threw him away.

"That's enough, Shu!" Scolded the voice, and Chiharu recognized this as the angry parent.

This new man kneeled before Chiharu and removed the light blue helm of his armor, then examined Chiharu with the benevolence of a holy man. He smiled then, held out his heavily armored hand, and Chiharu felt her stomach roll.

"My name is Shin," he said quietly, and Chiharu took his hand, "the idiot that was yelling at you is Shu, and that is Seiji," Shin motioned toward the green armored man standing some distance away.

Chiharu peered through the dark for a long time but said nothing. She felt more comfortable now that she was being addressed civilly, but reluctant even still, uncertain how to verify that these people were Jun's friends.

"You're Chiharu?" Shin continued and she nodded absently, still staring at Seiji. "Were you with Jun? Do you know where he went?"

"That idiot!" Chiharu cried, struck suddenly irate by the mention of Jun's name. "He left me here all by myself, he said he had to go _find_ someone, but God forbid he tells me who, or where they are, or whether they can help me! I don't know where he went, or why! All he did was give me this stupid little marble, it's broken anyhow, and he didn't even tell me what good it is besides acting as a really crappy lamp."

She threw the yoroi ball unceremoniously to the ground and Shin reclined on his heels, regarding the thing with no small degree of curiosity. He touched it gingerly, rolled it around in the dirt a quarter of a turn, and his delicate brow furrowed severely.

"It was like this when he gave it to you?"

Chiharu nodded curtly, and when Shin glanced up at her he could see tears rimming her eyes.

"Seiji, get over here," Shin ordered, "and Shu, you go get Ryo and Toma, they'll need to see this. And I want food, she needs something to eat, and something to drink. We need words."

At once the green armored warrior was beside Shin, and Chiharu watched with what might have been relief and joy as Shu exited her hovel. But when she looked to the faces of Shin and Seiji her spirits fell flat again. They seemed disturbed, perhaps afraid, and spoke in voices so quiet that she could not hear them even a foot away. She reasoned that they must be trying to keep her calm, but their efforts were failing miserably.

"What is that thing?" Chiharu said quietly. "Who are you people, and how do you know Jun?"

Shin and Seiji exchanged looks as though trying to weigh their information. But then they nodded to each other, leaned back, and Seiji began the lengthy explanation.

"We, the five of us I mean, are Samurai Troopers. We were given armors," he paused and motioned to his strange plated outfit, "and were charged with protecting the mortal realm from evil sorcerers, spirits, demons, and the like."

"So you're superheroes?"

The two exchanged uncertain glances.

"We are friends of Jun's," Shin continued, electing to ignore Chiharu's statement. "You may be young to remember, but ten years ago there was an incident in Shinjuku where-"

"All the power went out, and there were images of crazy ancient buildings, and there were storms but only over Shinjuku, and the news couldn't get in and the military couldn't account for anything," Chiharu completed Shin's thought. "Yes, I remember. I was terrified."

"Well, that was the first time we met Jun, he was a little kid at that time, I'm sure you can imagine. We came to this place and fought against an evil emperor named Arago, he wanted to enslave humans and control the mortal realm. Needless to say, he's dead now."

"So what?

"Well, you're sitting in his old compound," Seiji said matter-of-factly. "This is the place where we fought him."

"So you came to rescue Jun?"

Again the two exchanged looks.

"Well, we're not sure what's going on, exactly," Seiji replied tentatively. "He ran off on us a few days ago, he's been acting very strangely lately. We were worried that something was wrong, come to find out that he ended up here. We were hoping that we would be able to find him through use of the yoroi balls but they led us to you instead."

"Yoroi balls," Chiharu repeated dumbly, and pointed to the orb on the ground. "You mean that thing?"

Shin nodded. "That's what we use to summon our armors. It's also a way for us to find each other in the event that we're separated. They glow brighter when we're close to one another, they dim down when we're far away. Consider them a tracking device."

"So Jun is a trooper, too?"

Again the two exchanged looks.

It was at this point that the three remaining troopers entered the space and crowded around. Shin and Seiji drew their attention immediately to the fractured yoroi ball, and only after another quiet conversation did they seem to notice Chiharu at all. When they did look to her all she could do was offer a meek little wave and an awkward smile, now understanding how disappointed the group must have been to find her instead of Jun after their long search.

But when the troopers introduced themselves they did so with gusto, and Chiharu was uncertain whether this was their typical mode of operation or if they were trying to cheer her up.

"Ryo of Wildfire," said the red-armored man, and he looked to the man on his left.

"Shu of Stone," said the one in orange.

"Toma of the Heavens," said the last, and each of them bowed curtly before giving her an expectant look.

"I'm Chiharu," she said quietly, "of Keio University Hospital?"

"Welcome to the team," Ryo said cheerfully, "let's get to work!"

Ϫ

Days passed in a haze of darkness and dull pain, broken periodically by flashes of absolute consciousness. Jun was only partially self-aware during that time, could remember little of his encounters with the Arbiter after their completion but felt acutely every sensation during their transpiration. It was like living a dream, a very vivid and intense dream; the kind that seems so real in the moment but becomes a fleeting thought lost in waking. Jun could recall fighting back against restraint, working hard to deny the Arbiter's constant stream of questions, and wishing desperately in the moment that he had never left Chiharu behind.

Jun was no longer a guest among the evil spirits of the Nether Realm. He was a prisoner now with as little freedom to roam or speak as he had ever had, and as he lay awake thinking of his current predicament he could not help but remember the masses of human slaves marching below the Arbiter's grand spire. He imagined that he was inside of that structure even now, given the rate of production the thing must have been near completion, and he must be locked away in a dark and windowless room waiting helplessly for the Arbiter's next summons.

He had been called to the spirit four times now and each visit was always worse than the last. At first the Arbiter had been quite calm, speaking as though Jun was a confused child, but as the interrogations progressed the Arbiter grew more anxious, more furious, and Jun's most recent encounter with the malevolent spirit had left the young warrior in truly bad shape. His body was broken by blows both physical and magical that left him bruised, bloody, and so sore that he could scarcely move at all.

All the same Jun knew that he was doing the right thing. As long as he stayed put and continued to boldly lie to the Arbiter as to the whereabouts of his yoroi ball, Chiharu would be safe. The Arbiter could not locate the orb without Jun's help, or so it seemed, so as long as Jun held out the Arbiter would be stuck. The other troopers would find Chiharu, find him, and then they would all defeat the spirit as they had defeated so many enemies before.

For now Jun's second most frequent thought was about the yoroi orb, all about hiding its location at any cost. The Arbiter had had it in his grasp, had wielded the powerful shadow armor, and had been able to control Jun, its proper mortal bearer, as easily as a child's plaything. But then Jun took the orb, stole it out from beneath the Arbiter in a reckless move that lost the Arbiter not only the armor's instrument of summons, but also its bearer and the girl who the Arbiter had hoped to use as leverage to make Jun cooperate.

The Arbiter was not pleased.

It was not long before the next summons came, breaking the young warrior from whatever peace he might have found in solitude, and in a flash Jun was kneeled before the spirit's great onyx throne in the familiar torchlit chamber, feeling a mix of dread and adrenaline-fueled anticipation. He was practically conditioned by this point, like a dog salivating to a dinner bell, and so he felt only vague discomfort when the Arbiter appeared before him. There would be questions—there were always questions—and there would be some punishment when Jun inevitably withheld the information that the Arbiter was seeking. Then more questions, more punishment, the process repeated until the Arbiter lost all patience or Jun lost consciousness.

"Where is the orb?" said the Arbiter quietly as he paced slowly before Jun. "I grow tired of these games."

Jun remained quiet and stared at the floor. It was not that he had nothing to say—a thousand witty remarks flew through his brain every time the Arbiter asked the question—as much as it was that Jun was tired of the games as well, tired of biding his time until the other troopers came to his aid. He had lived the same scene for what felt like a month, and while the words changed between each encounter the outcome was always the same; Jun would end his day laying quietly in a tiny, dark room with no bed, no food, and would get very little sleep while wondering how much longer he could hold out.

"The orb, boy, where have you put it?"

The Arbiter stopped pacing and glared at Jun with disdain. His largely featureless face smacked of disappointment and well-tempered rage, an expression that Jun had come to recognize over the last days. It was no secret that the only two things on the Arbiter's mind were the yoroi ball and how best to kill the young warrior. The only thing on Jun's mind was that the Arbiter could not kill him so long as Jun remained quiet as to the orb's whereabouts.

"Where is it?" roared the Arbiter, his patience spent.

Jun shrugged noncommittally. "I guess I lost it."

The Arbiter roared a guttural sound that was so full of rage and hate that Jun caught a chill. The spirit threw back his head and stared almost longingly at the ceiling, and after only a few short moments turned his gaze back to Jun.

"Perhaps I have been too lenient with you," cooed the spirit as he began to pace once more. "Perhaps you require more motivation, some incentive to act."

"I've been known to take bribes," Jun quipped.

"Then you will not feel so uncomfortable at the prospect of bartering with lives," the Arbiter replied, unfazed by Jun's nonchalant response. He waved his bony hand once in a wide sweeping motion toward the door, and at once a troupe of frail looking people entered. "Human lives, that is."

Jun stared dumbly at the people but remained as expressionless as he could. The people standing before him, three women and two men aging from grandparent to high school graduate seemed entranced. They stood unblinking, still and quiet, and even as the Arbiter paced before them they did not move and did not speak.

"I understand that you do not have much care as to what happens to yourself," the Arbiter continued slyly, "but I also understand that you tend toward a soft spot for those too helpless to stand up for themselves. You cannot bear the thought of another taking punishment for your own wrongdoings, am I incorrect?"

Jun did not know how to respond. This encounter was no longer like the others; the Arbiter had him pinned, understood exactly how Jun's mind worked, and was now apparently keen to exploit the weaknesses that existed there. Suddenly things had become sinister.

"Some motivation to speak?" asked the Arbiter, and with a flick of the spirit's wrist one of the prisoners, a middle aged man wearing a tattered black suit with half of a blue tie still hanging around his neck, fell limp to the ground. But the death was not gruesome as the last had been, the body seemed untouched, completely bloodless, and the man's lifeless eyes continued to stare blankly at the ceiling as he lay.

If Jun had to judge, this would have been the most disturbing sight that he had beheld since Arago's invasion. It was surreal and terrifying to think that the Arbiter had the power to instantly strike a man dead with no outward signs of distress or damage. Jun wondered if he might fall to the same tactic.

"Where is the orb?"

Jun stared at the corpse on the floor before him and felt his stomach begin to churn. It was a strange sensation; he had not eaten for what felt like days and nausea was the last problem Jun thought he would experience. He wondered if the feeling was born of the anxiety that had been swelling in him. The other should have been there by now and the thought that they might not be coming had been gaining strength for some time now.

He imagined the troopers sitting in Nasté's home practically celebrating his absence. After all, he had thoroughly forsaken their trust, he had lied and withheld dangerous information, had thrown Nasté's strict rules by the wayside, and had topped off the whole fiasco with a wicked backhand that more than justified any hate that the others might be harboring. And maybe it was the realization that yet another innocent though severely damaged human had died on his behalf that was beginning to cause Jun to feel the same sense of disappointment in himself that he imagined the troopers had.

"I don't have it," Jun said flatly and he did not raise his eyes.

The Arbiter stopped pacing at once, startled, and stared at Jun with a degree of incredulity. The response was a far cry from the boy's traditional snark and so the Arbiter was intrigued; perhaps the boy was beginning to break.

"Where is it?" said the spirit.

Jun furrowed his brow as the last remnants of defiance surged through his body. Conflicted between instinctive resistance and exhaustion he remained silent for a long while, staring contemplatively at the corpse. He could not hear the Arbiter's continued questioning over the pounding in his head and so Jun did not know that the spirit's demands were coming in increasingly irate tones. It was not until a second body hit the ground that Jun was startled back to reality.

"I gave it to Chiharu!" he cried and then choked on an enormous lump in his throat. If Jun expected to feel relief after making the admission he was badly mistaken. He was suddenly more nauseous and more anxious than ever, felt his blood pressure rising and felt his eyes growing hot.

"Where is she?" cooed the Arbiter, clearly pleased by the break. "Where is the girl now?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come now, boy. It is not difficult for my minions to locate a mortal in this place. You have already damned her; if you tell me where she is located I may yet have mercy."

The defiance hit Jun in full force then. He looked at the Arbiter with reckless disdain and was not certain whether the rage in his gut was made for the spirit or for himself.

"I'm done," Jun said hotly. "I'm done. Send me away, kill me if you have to, you're not getting anything else out of me."

"She will die either way."

"I'm not bargaining with you anymore."

Having said what he considered to be his final words Jun crossed his arms over his chest and stared resolutely at the floor, willing the bile presently creeping up his throat back the way it came. He felt keenly the waves of anxiety radiating from his stomach and fought hard against the desire to close his eyes against the terror.

"You understand the consequences of continued disobedience," prodded the spirit. "I will find the orb."

"Then find it and be done with it."

"I will not kill you."

The words hit Jun like a freight train and against his better judgment he looked up in surprise. "Then what?" he snapped. "What are you going to do if you don't? Keep me around as a trophy? I don't know if you're aware but people like me don't make great prizes."

The Arbiter sat down heavily on the black stone seat and reclined comfortably, looking as though he was about to deliver a casual speech to a large crowd. "You went in search of the Guardian, and that is how I found you. Your actions are predictable if given enough time. It should come as no surprise to you that I was able to anticipate this move and eliminated the Guardian prior to your arrival in this place."

Jun stared dumbly at the Arbiter and rolled the word _eliminated_ through his mind. Killed? Destroyed? Trapped? Was the Guardian gone for good or was the benevolent spirit simply no longer a threat?

"I want you to understand, before I place you firmly under my control, that there is truly no hope for you, or for your friends, or for the girl who so foolishly feel into my traps. When I retrieve the orb you will be mine and my hold over this nether realm will be finalized. Once I eliminate your companions, the only real threat to my plan, I will be able to send you to the mortal realm to secure my power there as well."

"That sucks for me, then," Jun grumbled. "But know that the others won't give up until you're well and properly dead, regardless of where I'm at or what condition I'm in. They're plenty pissed at me and somehow I doubt they'll let me be your meat shield."

The Arbiter seemed mildly confused by Jun's irreverence and sat straight on his throne, regarding the boy with narrowed eyes. And then, the spirit's patience spent, he waved his hand and watched with amusement and satisfaction as the young man fell to the ground and lay as limp and motionless as the corpses beside him.


	11. Chapter 11

NOTE: I'm trying to get back into the swing of this after a long, long time away. My apologies for the delay, but life gets crazy sometimes and doesn't leave much room for the electives. I'm still working and hopefully as I plug along the quality will pick back up. I may edit this chapter later both for length and clarity.

Chapter 11

Over the next days Chiharu sat vigilantly on the top stair of Arago's old compound and stared in the direction of the ever growing spire. She held Jun's fractured yoroi ball with some reverence now; she knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he had been captured or worse and felt a deep sense of responsibility for it. She had flustered him, she had made him angry, and though she had never seen him truly irate she knew that if Jun was like any other person that she knew he would have made sloppy decisions under the influence of rage.

It was no consolation that the five troopers continued to work diligently to plan a daring rescue. Most nights they sat in quiet conversation around a meager fire well away from Chiharu's post, and almost never did they consult with her on anything. They were apparently overburdened, Chiharu reasoned, because they had run into so many unexpected situations: she had been waiting for them instead of Jun, she could not tell them where he had gone, and because Jun had relinquished his kanji orb to her they could no longer track him with any certainty.

She was fairly certain that the troopers did not like her.

Presently Chiharu rolled the orb between her palms, feeling its warmth against her skin as it pulsed its resonance with the others, and glanced occasionally at the fire below her. Predictably the five men sat around the blaze and though she knew that they were not enjoying their stay here she imagined that the company must be nice. Still, she would not join them, not by choice. She considered herself to be an outsider among people much stronger and more capable than she could ever be. If she joined them she would be a hindrance to their progress.

It was to her surprise, then, when next she glanced their way she saw one of the figures marching toward her, a solitary figure against the bright fire. She watched him until he sat beside her and folded his hands in his lap, though not once did he address the confused expression that Chiharu wore, and once he had settled he stared down at the fire just as she had been.

Chiharu recognized this one as Shin, a point to which she felt grateful as he seemed to be the most likable of the bunch, and as he sat there without the bulky blue armor he seemed significantly more human than he had before. He drew several long breaths before he looked at her, as though he was preparing for some long winded speech or to deliver some bad news.

"How are you holding up?" Shin said quietly.

"I don't think that I'm the one we should be worried about, do you?" Chiharu replied and at once she realized that her response had been slightly hotter than she had intended.

Shin sighed. "I understand you're upset. But the thing is that we can't necessarily worry about how Jun is doing. He's not here and the only way we can help him is if we find him. But you are here and you aren't used to this sort of excitement."

Chiharu was relieved that her outburst had not upset the warrior. The last thing she wanted at this point was to drive her newfound company away. "I'm holding up all right, I suppose. I mean, I was never hurt, just scared. Jun and I saw so many people die the day I got here; it didn't even phase Jun but I thought we were both done for."

"What do you mean?" Shin asked, surprised and confused by the admission. The troopers had indeed seen some questionable activity around the nether world but nothing they had witnessed had seemed to be in any way sinister. There had been, however, some talk amongst the warriors about how the black spire had come to rise again and some speculation as to whether or not the missing victims of the Tokyo Station explosion were a part of it.

"I mean that that spirit, Jun called it the Arbiter, he killed a bunch of people in front of us. The spirit man yelled at Jun for disobeying orders and then struck four men dead on the spot."

Shin sat for a moment and did not look Chiharu's way. The news was distressing for many reasons, least among them the fact that the innocent and apparently brainwashed men who had accompanied Jun in the attack on Nasté's home were now dead. Jun was not one to take lightly the deaths of others, not if there was anything that he could do to prevent it, so Chiharu's report of Jun's calm after the violent incident was more than slightly alarming.

And as Shin continued to think about the report he began to wonder if perhaps the need to be alone, the need to reflect or punish himself, was the reason that Jun had left Chiharu behind. It would not be a far stretch to call such a reaction within the bounds of Jun's character; he had been known to seek solitude after stressful events and had, on more than one occasion, placed more than the fair share of blame on himself for the suffering of others. Shin wondered if this was another of those occasions.

"We've decided to head to the spire tomorrow morning," Shin said at length. "But the problem is that we don't think that it would be safe or wise to bring Jun's yoroi orb anywhere near the place."

"You're not leaving me here," Chiharu protested. "I'm done being lonely and in distress."

Shin blew a long sigh and got to his feet, extended a hand to Chiharu, and turned his gaze on her sharply. "I knew you would say something like that," he said. "And I told the others the same thing. If it's the case that you refuse to stay here then you'll need to come join us down below; you can't go into a mission like this without a quick briefing."

Ϫ

The Arbiter of Souls stood upon a large outcropping of dark rock that afforded him a wide, sweeping view of the chasm below. He watched with smug satisfaction as his prized prisoner struggled against the flow of red-orange liquid pooled in a crater that spanned the length and width of the enormous space. And each time Jun cried out against his bonds the Arbiter's smile spread ever wider. His hold over the young warrior was growing stronger each day.

The pool was, the Arbiter believed, one of the very few things that Arago had gotten right during his short time as ruler of the nether realm. Rumors had always spread about this particular method of control and of its undeniable effectiveness on human subjects. The process was meant to drive the weak minded to submission or insanity and in almost all cases it worked. Between the frigid viscous fluid that pulled at the body and the constant wailing song of the white spirits circling above, many prisoners did not last more than a day. Those who did last, however, were treated to arcing electrical bolts that burned the body and numbed the mind in bursts of agony.

The Arbiter was taking no chances with Jun. He had proven resistant to every method of torture and control to which the Arbiter had submitted him. But Jun had also proven susceptible to hallucinations, to subtle suggestions and implantations of self-doubt, and so there was no reason not to employ the same tactic now, not when absolute submission was so close at hand.

So it was that Jun had been almost completely unaware of his surroundings for as long as he could remember. Though he could feel the icy water lapping against his chest and could feel long hot bolts of pain coursing through his body he could not see the prison in which he was being held captive and could not hear the Arbiter's baleful laughter as it rang down through the chasm. Instead, Jun was treated to nightmarish visions of death and destruction, and while the scenes varied in theme and intensity they all featured the five troopers, Chiharu, and Nasté in assorted degrees of distress.

As of late the visions had begun to shift, however, and the change was as disturbing as it was effective. In the beginning there had been death, pain, agony and despair all caused by the Arbiter and his minions. But now the visions suggested that the troopers were fighting amongst themselves in ways that were not altogether unbelievable.

What had started as a petty squabble in the scene before Jun's eyes had developed into a full blown battle with armor and weapons ringing out against the dark. The troopers fought each other as they might have fought Arago's warlords or a slew of youja foot soldiers, and if there had been a reason for the row Jun had long since forgotten what it was.

As the battle intensified it seemed to grow closer, as if the five troopers were seated atop a moving track, and before long Jun was close enough that he could reach out for them, call to them, and try to stop them from killing each other. He screamed at them until his voice went hoarse and when at last he fell silent the troopers fell back, stopped fighting one by one, and turned slowly to face him.

"Why are you doing this?" Jun cried. "Why won't you get me out of here?"

None of the warriors spoke as they stepped forward into shadows that Jun had not noticed until now. Instead they leveled their weapons and lowered their gazes as though they were looking through him, and as one form the five troopers moved toward him with looks of rage and hate that had previously been reserved for only the most foul of enemies. And as their blows fell against Jun's unprotected body the electric arcs jolted him in time, simulating pain as he might have felt had the weapons actually struck.

Jun reeled against the pain and cried out in uncertainty. He could not imagine why his friends would want to hurt him, could not imagine why they would leave him in the Arbiter's clutch. All that he could think of was that they were still angry at him for hitting Nasté and for not telling them about his initial hallucination. Jun decided that he would not fight back even if he had had the means by which to do so, because the troopers had every right to be upset, and at this point, maybe it was better to simply lay down.

So Jun accepted his punishment as quietly as he could until his body could withstand no more. Then he fell back against the cold liquid and knew nothing but the bitterness of self-hate and the understanding of complete betrayal.

Ϫ

The troopers rolled through the paths between structures in tight formation, cutting down youja foot soldiers and watching closely for any sign that Jun was not at their target location. The black spire was only a few kilometers away, though the route there was full of blind corners and tight spaces that slowed the group more than any wanted to admit.

At the center of it all struggled Chiharu, unused to such precise movements and preoccupied with the intelligence of her decision to come along. It was not the first time that she had had doubts about joining the troopers on the rescue; in fact, she had doubted her bold choice since she first spoke to Shin. But now it was too late, the plan was set in motion, and all Chiharu could do now was work to keep pace with the others.

They had decided at length to travel to the spire as a group. Once inside and after getting some idea of the structure, they would split into groups as necessary to search for their lost companion. The trooper named Toma had described the interior of the spire in some detail, explaining that the place—or at least what he had seen of it—was filled with long corridors, stairwells, and alternate paths that snaked away as far as one could see. Under such circumstances the group would certainly have to split.

"I can't guarantee that it's going to be the same place as it was last year. I mean, we completely destroyed the place. It could be that the Arbiter rebuilt the tower to be more difficult to navigate," Toma said as he huffed along.

"I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case," said Seiji, who then glanced nervously at Chiharu. He had yet to actively voice his dissatisfaction with Chiharu but she could tell how he felt by the look in his one visible eye.

The troopers seemed to have a certain degree of reservation about Chiharu, each feared for the safety of the party for his own personal reasons, but no one would ever say any of it out loud. Shin was the only member of the group that seemed comfortable with her. He walked close beside her, even considering his bulky armor and weapons, and any time someone made an off color remark he would offer a comforting smile to reassure her that she was indeed in the right place.

Shin knew that a split among the troopers was inevitable. They would have to break into groups and one of the groups would have to take Chiharu. He had been contemplating exactly how the split would work, however, if they would part in equal halves or if they would weigh the group with Chiharu. Either way Shin knew that he would have to accompany her, if only to keep the other troopers in line.

It was a long while before the group was at the base of the tower, peering down a long alley between buildings that was broken in even intervals by cross streets and side paths. Heavily armed and armored youja foot soldiers patrolled occasionally down the ways, apparently oblivious, and were the only sign of trouble that the group had seen since they arrived.

The soldiers were also the first confirmation that they were tracking Jun to the appropriate location.

"I'll go with the girl," Shin said suddenly, and the stationary group rounded on him at once. He breathed deeply and shrugged. "We need to get this worked out before we barrel in. Could be that we're met with difficulty from the get go and won't have much time for negotiations."

"I'll go as well," said Shu, and Chiharu struggled to withhold a groan of displeasure.

There was a long silence as Toma, Seiji, and Ryo eyed each other, but then Toma drew a deep breath and nodded.

"I'll go as well. It would not surprise me if we need a little protection for the unarmed—Seiji and Ryo can take care of themselves well enough. Plus if things get hairy the four of us can pair off," he explained.

Shin nodded curtly and started down the way with his hand resting comfortably on his weapon. He felt pleased with himself; the negotiations had gone as smoothly as he could have predicted and the outcome left him with plenty of protection for Chiharu, who Shin was not certain could protect herself. With his renewed confidence he strode, peeking quickly around corners and dodging the foot soldiers' paths, until at last the party reached the entrance to the spire.

Chiharu stepped up to Shin and stared at the gaping hole that served as the tower's entrance. "Are you sure this is okay?"

Shin shook his head and clapped her on the shoulder, his gaze locked on the spire as well. "Not even remotely."


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: I'm still alive. Finished student teaching, just got a job as a real-life English teacher, and now summer vacation is upon me. This = time to write, time to finish this bad boy up! I'm sorry to have been away for so long, but things are gearing back up. Is anyone still out there?

Chapter 12

Shin had not been surprised to find that the tower split at its very entrance. One red carpeted stairwell spiraled round a tall black pillar until it disappeared into the ceiling and a second, almost imperceptible, dove downward into the depths of the earth from a small doorway located in the northwest corner of the room. He was happy that the party had come to an agreeable split long before they had ever entered the place, and to avoid any further conflict he volunteered his group to go down.

It had been several hours since he, Chiharu, Shu, and Toma had bid Ryo and Seiji farewell and watched the light and fire disappear up the winding staircase, and since then Chiharu had clutched Shin's arm with no degree of reservation while Shu and Toma led them into the dark. He felt an occasional shiver course through Chiharu's tiny form and felt glad that he had decided to take her in his group; there was no telling how Ryo or Seiji might have reacted to constantly tending to the terrified girl.

As the group descended the long, straight staircase they came across numbers of wide landings constructed of the same black stone as the rest, with sealed doors and unlit sconces hanging around the rooms' perimeters. Each time their path led directly onto one of these landings there were three exits from the room: One directly across the way which continued their path downward; one to the right; and one to the left. Now and again Shu would poke his head into one of the rooms to the left or right of their path but the place was almost entirely unlit and he could not make heads or tails of what lay beyond the thresholds. It was then that the party most missed Ryo and Seiji, because if only they had had Seiji's armor at their disposal the path would be brightly lit.

The situation struck Shin as odd on more than one occasion. There were no fires in any sconces and their only light came from a dim flashlight that Toma had thought to stick in their pack, which Chiharu now carried on her person as though her life depended on it. It was as though this section of the tower was completely unused but built with purpose and efficiency, as though the dozen or more rooms that they had passed through were simply waiting to be occupied.

Shin's suspicions were verified when at last the scenery changed. By Toma's count the stairwell should have opened into its sixteenth identical landing, yet as they stepped onto the flat surface of stone they were both dumbfounded and slightly terrified. The landing was there, but instead of a square structure it took the form of an infinitely long hallway lined by softly glowing orbs. The hallway was not constructed of black stone; instead it was gray and each block glistened with golden particles that danced with each shift of Chiharu's flashlight.

"What is this place?" Shu mused quietly, and then turned with purpose to Toma. "How far down are we?"

Toma shrugged noncommittally. He was also surveying the place, though with more intensity and focus than Shu had been. "Several thousand feet, I'd imagine. And it doesn't look like we can go down any farther unless there's another stairwell at one end of this hallway or the other."

Wordlessly, Shin began walking down the hall with Chiharu still clutching his arm. Beginning some fifteen or twenty feet from the door by which they had entered were sets of thick stone doors inlaid into the brick, one on each side of the long hall, with small windows and no discernible handles. Shin peeked into the first of these doors that he came by, then a second, and then a third: They were all identical.

On the opposite side of each door was a squat, square room with a simple bed of straw or hay and a diminutive wooden table. The rooms were otherwise bare and contained no light source of any kind; it seemed that any illumination the rooms would receive was from the hallway proper, and the light even there was dim at best.

"This is a cell block," Shin said flatly and looked to Shu and Toma. Then he continued down the way, peeking into each window as he passed. "The place is completely unoccupied, by the looks of it."

Toma and Shu followed Shin down the way, peering into the cells as they went.

"There must be hundreds of cells," Toma said. "I would imagine if we were to find Jun it would be somewhere in here."

The troopers exchanged glances and set off together down the hall, peeking into each cell as they walked. When at last they came to the end of the corridor, which indeed led nowhere, they turned around and made their way back to investigate the other side. Again and again the cells were empty, though the hallway this time ended in a narrow staircase leading downward.

"This is the only way forward," Shin said. He turned back around and motioned for Shu to take the point, grasped Chiharu's hand in his own, and led her down the stairs while Toma brought up the rear.

The staircase wound around in a tight circle and grew so narrow at a point that they were forced to walk single file, and whether as a measure of safety or because he actually cared, Toma marched the whole way with his hand firmly planted on Chiharu's shoulder. By the time they reached the next landing, almost a hundred steps below, the lot of them were exhausted.

Again the stairwell led onto a flat terrace, though this was unlike the first. It was made of obsidian rock and was large and square, with exits in the predictable locations, though now the left and right exits led to additional hallways filled with similarly empty cells. It was eerily quiet, just as the rest of the structure had been, but all the same the party began its exhaustive search.

Ϫ

Ryo and Seiji climbed flight after flight of stairs until they came to a hallway not dissimilar to the one in which Shin, Shu, Toma, and Chiharu had earlier searched. Each side of the hall was lined with alternating cells, ten deep on either side of the stairwell, and were so dimly lit by low burning torches that neither warrior could make out any real detail. But what the pair lacked in sight they made up for with hearing: The place was alive with terrified wails and moans, the sound of humans crying echoed thick all around.

The two warriors exchanged glances of trepidation, and then they drew their weapons.

"This must be the place," Ryo said as he peered between iron bars and into a cell, spying inside an old man who stared at the wall as if he was entranced. Ryo's stomach lurched at the sight and he turned to Seiji, who shared a similarly nauseated look.

"How many do you think there are?" Seiji asked as he peeked into a cell packed with people. "Some of these cells have only one occupant and others have more than a dozen."

Ryo ignored the question, wandered away from Seiji, and peered into the cells in the opposite hall. They were occupied by all manner of people in every state of health from visibly unharmed to very near dead. His heart crept up to his throat as he walked along, until he came to the very last cell and stared for a long while.

"Here," Ryo stammered as Seiji approached.

At once the warrior of grace understood Ryo's initial hesitation. It was indeed Jun that lay quite still on the ground behind the thick iron door, but had Seiji not just been notified of the fact he would never have known. Jun's body was in a state of being such as Seiji had never imagined possible. The boy was notably frail, shirtless and trembling in his sleep—if indeed he was asleep—with his legs drawn to his chest while his tired looking arms cradled his head. His breaths came in slow and shuddered spasms that were irregular at best and so shallow that the warriors feared at first that he was not breathing at all.

"How do you suppose we ought to get inside?" Ryo said, and though he tried to sound composed his voice broke at the question.

Seiji shrugged, still dumbstruck by Jun's appearance. He worked hard to find his words again, and looked a number of times between Ryo and the boy in the cell. "There isn't any obvious opening mechanism, not for any of the doors here."

"And it's not likely that he can open it from inside."

"Not that he'll be getting up at any rate," Seiji said curly. "Supposing we blasted it down with the ballistic attack of one of our armors, do you think he would be hurt?"

Now Ryo shrugged. "He's already hurt."

Seiji could not refute the observation. The damage to Jun's body was made obvious by the fact that the young warrior was not on his feet fighting for a way out of his prison. Silence settled over the two troopers as they continued to stare, each contemplating the power of his armor's ballistic attack and wondering whether or not impact would further wound their companion.

"Shall we knock down the door?" said Seiji at length, and when Ryo nodded the korin moved to action.

With a cry to his armor, Seiji's sure kill connected the door with force enough to knock it from its hinges, and after the dust cleared the thing hung as a twisted mass of dark metal that smoldered and creaked in the aftermath. Jun lay untouched and still unmoving, apparently undisturbed by the commotion.

Ryo was the first into the cell and he knelt beside the boy, touched his shoulder gently, and looked to Seiji for reassurance.

"Someone will have heard that racket," Said the warrior of light, but all the same he sat beside Ryo and removed his own helmet. "I don't see anything terrible," he continued as he gently manipulated Jun's arms away from his face. "Once we're out of here I'll use my armor to heal him the best I can, but I don't know to what extent he's actually injured."

Ryo scooped Jun urgently into his arms and stood. True that the wounds appeared superficial; no limbs were broken and the boy was in one piece, but he was cut and bruised up and down his body, and Ryo worried of complications. Coupled with prolonged and complete unconsciousness and constant trembling, Ryo could scarcely hide his concern.

"Let's get out of here and meet with the others," Ryo said.

Seiji collected and replaced his helm before leading Ryo from the cell. "Let's hope that we can find them."

Ϫ

Chiharu had by now become comfortable enough with her surroundings to venture away from Shin's side. She meandered cautiously down the long hall of the apparently empty cell block, glancing into each as she passed with hopes that she might spot Jun. Occasionally, she would peer down at the cracked yoroi ball in her hand with a feeling she might have described as longing. Over the last days she had come to understand much about her enigmatic crush, but at the same time a hundred more questions came to her mind. She understood now the reasons why he refused to commit to relationships with anyone—male of female—and why he kept so much of his private live a secret. Given his selective nature, Chiharu would have imagined that Jun's friends would be trustful of him and quite anxious to retrieve him, but they had been restrained and almost hesitant in their decision to search.

Chiharu wondered why the troopers did not trust Jun.

At length she returned to the main room from which she had entered the hall, where Toma and Shin and Shu were presently seated on the stairs in the entryway engaged in quiet conversation. They glanced at her as she entered but offered no real reaction, and did not stop their discussion when she joined the group.

"We can press on downward or go meet back up with Ryo and Seiji," said Toma with conviction. "Those are really our only two choices."

"We can't go back empty handed," said Shu.

"But we also have no idea how many floors are below us or how many cells we'll have to search through," reasoned Shin. "I want to keep searching, too, but there's potential for thousands of cells down there. We could be searching for weeks."

The warriors had obviously arrived at an impasse. They fell quiet and collectively looked at the floor.

"It seems silly to argue," Chiharu said brightly, and the three troopers looked at her with curiosity. "Arguing won't solve anything. Let's go down two more floors, if we come across more cells we'll search. If there aren't cells below or if the place seems to go on forever after the two floors, we'll go find the others." She paused thoughtfully, and then said, "Besides, they may have already found Jun by now and are coming to find us."

Shu, Toma, and Shin exchanged blank looks that conveyed their doubts well enough without speech.

"It's a compromise," Chiharu added. "At least this way we can say we tried."

Toma nodded and turned toward the downward stairs before him. "It's not a wonder you gave Jun such a hard time," he said dully. "You're so optimistic."

Chiharu wasn't certain if she had been insulted or complimented, but she followed the warriors down the stairs anyway. They walked in silence until they came to the next landing, a cell block identical to the one above, and Shin designated each of the party an area to search. Again, they found nothing but empty cells, and so they continued down.

The next landing was distinctly different. A square room with cells along each wall, and in the middle of each row was an open doorway through which the troopers could discern a soft red glow and a putrid, sulfuric odor. After a quick check of the eight empty cells, Shu led the way through one of the doors with caution and a bit of hesitation.

The doorway led out onto a narrow terrace which wound about the tower on all four sides, with waist high bannisters and torches hanging at each corner. Two hundred feet below them churned a pool of foul, red-orange liquid that bubbled and swirled like a pot ready to boil, and it was from that pool that the light and odor originated.

"What is this place?" said Chiharu, as much in awe of the spectacle as she was terrified by it. She leaned over the bannister and peered down, spotting a dozen or more white spirits flocking just above the pool's surface.

"Your guess is as good as any of ours," replied Toma, and as he spoke he meandered around the terrace and peeked periodically over the side. "It's got the same geological structure as a volcano, or maybe an enormous crater, and there's heat and stink to go with it. The tower extends all the way down into the stuff—I wonder what the point of that is."

"At any rate, Jun isn't here," Shin said hotly, and he turned to go back the way they had come. "We should go try to find Ryo and Seiji and hope that—"

Shin stopped abruptly, face to face with an imposing black figure who smiled through his blood red eyes. The warrior of water recognized the figure immediately, and as each of the group turned to face the Arbiter of Souls the spirit bowed respectfully and spoke in a booming voice.

"I knew that you would come, friends," said the Arbiter coolly, "though I regret to inform you that your trip was in vain. The warrior of shadow is—presently incapacitated."

"What did you do with Jun?" Shu demanded, and he gripped his bo tightly as he pushed his way through Toma and Chiharu to stand beside Shin. "Where is he?"

The Arbiter shrugged. "It seems that you chose the wrong path," he said. "Your friend is nowhere near here. I assure you, though; last I checked he was alive. But it could be that his condition has changed. Human lives are fragile, aren't they?"

Chiharu let forth a quiet cry of terror and gripped the nearest trooper's arm like a frightened child. Toma let her hold him.

"Now," the Arbiter continued, "you have something which belongs to me, and I would care to have it returned. The yoroi orb is of little value to you without its bearer."

Chiharu gripped the orb tightly and looked to Toma for reassurance. He offered no response, not even a glance at her, but Chiharu could see the tendon in his jaw pulsing as he ground his teeth. The situation was more dire than any of her three companions would let on.

"We have nothing of yours," Shin replied.

"So be it," said the Arbiter. "If you wish to be difficult I will not stop you. I cannot say the same for my loyal spirits, however. They can be quite ravenous when faced with reward."

Shin unleashed the ballistic attack of his armor and the Arbiter vanished. He whirled about and watched wide eyed as the void beyond the platform blackened, filled with the incorporeal bodies of thousands of spirit soldiers. He cried out in warning, and at the same moment that the spirit army rushed forth, Toma scooped Chiharu into his arms and ran behind Shu up the stairs.

The roar of spirit sounds echoed in the narrow stairwell and their bodies crashed against the walls and floor like waves of black ink. They followed so close on the warriors' heels that Shin could feel them groping for him, could hear hollow, wraith-like screams when their bodies exploded into thick mist as they trampled each other. He kept his eyes ever forward, however, as much because he was afraid to look behind him as he wanted to seem brave for Chiharu, who stared back at him wide-eyed with her mouth open to scream, though no sound issued forth from her.

"Keep going!" Shin cried above the din, and as the group passed through the white hallway—the first cell block proper—he turned to launch the wave crusher once more. The attack materialized and sent the spirits still on the stairs behind him tumbling back the way they came, but more and more funneled from each end of the long hallway from a source unseen, and Shin turned and fled, now much farther behind his companions than he would have liked.

"What do we do?" Chiharu asked in a panic. "There's too many of them! There's too many stairs to climb!"

Toma did not respond, so focused was he on continuing the climb. If truth was told he was utterly exhausted; he was not built to carry people as he was carrying Chiharu, and so his mind was focused only on forward progress and continuing to breathe. Shu, however, looked over his shoulder and offered her some confidence.

"We keep running!" Shu yelled. "And we hope to hell they don't come at us from above!"

Chiharu's stomach tied itself into a knot, and she held tight round Toma's neck. Then she looked behind, expecting some clever and truly reassuring response from Shin, but she was instead surprised to find that he had fallen quite far behind and was focused entirely on running as fast as his feet would take him. So Chiharu closed her eyes and pressed her face into Toma's cold sweaty neck, and she could feel his rapid pulse.

"God, don't let me die this way," she whispered, and she felt Toma's grasp on her body tighten.

"You've got the orb, don't you?" Toma said through labored gasps, and he felt Chiharu nod. "None of us will let you die."

Up and up the warriors fled with the sea of spirits growing at their back. Eight, ten, twelve stories they climbed, and though their bodies and minds screamed for relief from the exertion, their pace never slowed, until on the third landing from the top Shin turned to unleash the wave crusher again.

Shu, Toma, and Chiharu heard the slap of plate on stone as Shin hit the ground, and they turned as one to watch him being overtaken. Shin slapped and sliced with his trident, but for each enemy he slew a dozen more came behind, and eventually he disappeared beneath the weight of his enemies.

"Shin!" Shu cried, torn between unleashing the rock crusher and rushing down the stairs to save his companion. But as he moved toward the throng Toma thrust out his arm, stopping Shu dead in his tracks.

"They want the yoroi orb," Toma said with composure. "Chiharu, give them the orb."

Toma placed Chiharu on her feet so suddenly that her knees wobbled under her weight, and she looked at Toma with confusion. He practically pushed her down the stairs, where she threw the yoroi orb with all her might back the way the spirits had come. At the same time, Shu clambered down and pulled Shin from the pile, and though the warrior of torrent was obviously distressed and vaguely injured, he stood beside Toma and Chiharu long enough to watch as half of the spirits started back down the stairs after the orb. The other half hesitated long enough for the warriors to begin their flight back up the stairs, and then continued their pursuit.

At the first landing below the ground floor Shu spotted Seiji peering around, and screamed at him to run. And Seiji watched as Toma and Chiharu came barreling out of the doorway, Shin close behind, and a sea of black spirits poured into the space. Seiji was the first one up the stairs, where he screamed at Ryo to break for the exit, and within two minutes the warriors were blinded by sunlight and sprinting back toward their base.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Happyface. I think I got my groove back. Please read, review, let me know you're still even reading this thing. In other news, I feel evil.

Chapter 13

The camp was silent for hours after the troopers' return. The five warriors sat round a small fire while Chiharu worked diligently to dress and treat Jun's many wounds under the protection of the dilapidated stairwell where she had originally made shelter. All of them were exhausted by the long sprint back to camp, a partial motivator in their quiet, but once the physical fatigue faded they turned their attention to more troubling issues.

Shin explained briefly the events that unfolded in the lower levels of the spire and revealed to the others that they had been forced to give up the yoroi ball on pain of death. Then Seiji explained how he and Ryo had come to find Jun in a cell block packed with dead and dying prisoners, and Jun had not been far from the mark when they had discovered him.

Everyone had seen the boy as they fled the onyx tower, though the truth of his condition did not register until Chiharu began issuing frantic orders once back at camp. She had called for clothes, bandages, water, and anything else the troopers had on hand that could help, and then she strictly removed them from the area, stating that Jun was too unstable to be around so much commotion.

"What about your armor?" Ryo asked Seiji after a while. "Maybe you could help her."

This was an issue that Seiji had been contemplating for some time. He knew that the healing power of his armor could help, at least superficially, yet he had reservations about letting Chiharu see what he was capable of doing. According to Shin she had been unfazed by the wave smasher and, by and large, the existence of the armors altogether, but being that she was a medical student he wondered how she might react to such simple methods of performing her duties.

When Seiji made his hesitation known it was Shu who responded with reason and well-tempered anger. "Look at it this way," Shu said, "if Jun dies do you want to be able to say that you did everything you could do to help him, or do you want to say that you did nothing because you were afraid of a girl seeing the power of your armor?"

Seiji looked indignant but could not refute Shu's logic. In the grand scheme of things his reservation seemed juvenile at best, and so he stood, called his armor, and marched toward the stairs while the other warriors fell back into strained silence. Seiji knocked delicately on the splintered wood outside of the shelter but did not wait for Chiharu to answer before he ducked and entered. She was presently concentrating on her watch, which she held close to her face, while holding Jun's wrist delicately in her other hand. After a while she replaced his hand on his bare stomach and glanced at Seiji casually.

She looked positively haggard. Her face was streaked with dirt and her eyes were red and swollen. Beneath the filth she seemed pale, and when she turned her attention back to Jun he could see a nearly imperceptible shudder course through her body. She had clearly been crying, was still upset, and though Seiji did his best to remain stoic and clear headed he could not help but feel sympathy for her. After all, he felt the same kind of sadness about the whole ordeal as she.

"Pulse is low," she said as the korin approached, then turned back to her charge. "There's not a lot I can do here, not without proper supplies." Then she sighed and folded her hands in her lap. "Is there trouble?"

Seiji shook his head and drew his nodachi. "Don't panic," he said when he noticed Chiharu's expression. Then he lowered the point of his blade to Jun's chest—a challenge in such a small space—and closed his eyes.

"What are you doing to him?" Chiharu asked at once, but she did not move to stop him. "Why do you need your sword?"

Seiji opened his one visible eye and locked his gaze on Chiharu. "My armor grants me the ability to heal certain wounds by focusing light through my blade," he explained. "It's not a technique I use often and I can't be certain whether it will have any real effect on Jun, but at this point it seems that it's all I can do to help."

Seiji could see clearly that Chiharu's interest had been piqued. She sat back on her knees, allowing Seiji as much space as she could afford, and watched intently as he closed his eyes once more and began to focus the dim light that filtered through the broken shelter. The steel radiated softly as it drank in the light, and clear and comfortable warmth spread all around the place. Chiharu felt undeniable calm for the first time in days and stared with awe as the remaining cuts and bruises on Jun's body began to disappear. By the time Seiji pulled his sword away all that remained of the cuts were angry red lines and the bruises had been reduced to large yellow and brown splotches that looked on the better side of healing.

The exhausted warrior dismissed his armor and sat down to survey his work. For the most part he was satisfied, more because he had done his part in caring for Jun than because the effort had proved particularly useful. Indeed, if Seiji had been honest with himself he hoped for more from the halo armor than what it had provided. He did not expect Jun to wake immediately after the procedure, but he had expected all of the outward signs of trauma to be gone. The situation left him wondering if the wounds had been more serious than he had expected, or if the halo armor was weakened by his own weariness.

"That was amazing," Chiharu said quietly, and she leaned forward to stare at Jun's body. "I never realized that such power existed in the world, can you imagine what would happen if it could be harnessed for—"

Despite his fatigue, Seiji could not help but snap at her. "That's enough of that kind of talk. My armor is used for my purposes only."

Chiharu felt stupid and stared at Seiji dumbly. She stammered an apology, on the verge of tears again, and he knew at once that he had let his emotions get the better of him. The two sat in silence, watching the shallow rise and fall of Jun's breast as he breathed, and waited for some sort of change. Routinely, Chiharu would grasp Jun's wrist and read his pulse, would touch the back of her hand to his forehead, would try to force what little water she had down his throat, and all the while Seiji watched on with mounting dread. He wondered how many hours it had been.

"You must be tired," Seiji said at last. "Do you want to take a break, go get some air?"

Chiharu shook her head and sighed. "No, I'm all right," she said. "But thank you all the same. I might take a bit to eat if we have enough to spare."

Seiji nodded and got to his feet, and as he made for the door he stopped and glanced back at the girl who had begun her routine once again. He opened his mouth to speak, to thank her for what she was doing, but thought better of the gesture and excused himself from the shelter instead.

Once outside it was clear that half a day or more had gone by. The nether-realm sun had disappeared beneath the horizon and the sky was streaked with the unnatural warmth of its sunset. The smell of warm food drifted on a soft breeze that drew Seiji to the fire. He sat on the ground between Shu and Ryo and accepted a bowl from Shin gratefully.

"She wouldn't come out?" Toma asked. "How is Jun?"

It seemed that the troopers had overcome their earlier exhaustion and were now in relatively high spirits. Even Seiji felt better after having a few bites of food, and even though it was simple miso it warmed him through and made him feel at ease.

"Chiharu declined to come out, though she said she'd take some food when I could get it to her," Seiji said. "And Jun is…well…" His brow furrowed in thought as he searched for the words to describe the young warrior's condition. "He's still out."

The troopers went quiet at the statement and collectively examined their soup bowls. The news was apparently not what they wanted to hear. They continued eating in silence until they were all finished, and Seiji prepared what was left over for Chiharu's dinner. There was no response when he excused himself from the party, and when he entered the space beneath the stairs he heaved a sigh. Chiharu had fallen asleep with her head nestled comfortably on Jun's shoulder, her fingers entwined in his, and she seemed more content than she had been since he had met her.

Seiji placed the lukewarm soup on the ground and sat, happy enough to let Chiharu sleep while she could, and reclined against a thick pillar from which he was afforded a beautiful view of the nether-realm sky. He stared out at it for what felt like hours and listened to the quiet conversation of the other troopers die away until there was naught but the rasps of Jun's labored breaths.

When next Seiji opened his eyes the moon was high in the sky and the firelight seeping into the space had reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes. Chiharu was awake again, poking and prodding at Jun in what seemed to be her usual rhythm, and she seemed not to notice that Seiji had roused. In fact, as Seiji continued to watch her she seemed frantic, anxious, and she frequently touched her fingers delicately to Jun's cheeks, whispered in his ear.

"Is everything okay?" Seiji asked quietly, tempering his voice so as not to startle the girl.

Chiharu looked at Seiji wide-eyed and nodded. "Go wake the others, he's coming to."

Seiji's stomach jumped into his throat and he lurched clumsily for the exit, spilling the untouched bowl of soup and stumbling in his effort for speed. He began yelling ten yards away from the camp, and by the time he began shaking each of the warriors in turn they had begun to wake. Seiji did not bother to explain the situation, did not so much as address their expressions of confusion, and instead bolted back to the stairs.

When Seiji peered inside he saw that Chiharu had moved away from and was presently staring at Jun, watching intently as the warrior of shadow shifted with discomfort. She pressed a hand against Jun's shoulder to keep him still, and when he grimaced a quiet cry escaped him. As the other troopers peered in over Seiji's head Jun's eyes fluttered open, he blinked against the moonlight, and lay very still.

Jun recognized at once that he was not in a familiar place, and he could not reconcile how he had arrived here. He stared at the ceiling, oblivious to the people beginning to crowd around him, and tried desperately to feel any sensation that his body registered. He had to connect the sensations to reality; he could not get lost in another hallucination. There was pain, overwhelming pain, and cold against his bare chest. His shoulders ached and his lungs burned and rasped with each breath he took. His head throbbed, his vision swam in and out of focus, and each time he blinked he saw visions of the Arbiter poised to strike him dead. If he admitted the truth to himself, he was full of panic, and he was not certain that he could keep it inside.

He drew three deep breaths, intending to calm himself before he sat up, and allowed his eyes to wander around the space. At once his gaze fell upon Seiji and the other troopers who now stood full on in the doorway, and he could not stop his instinctive reaction. His mind blanked and his legs exploded into action, propelling him backward and away from what he believed were threatening visions, and he did not stop until his head connected a wooden pillar with a sickening crack. In one motion he grasped the back of his head and curled his elbows around his face, shielding himself as well as he could from the images. He thought that he could hear himself screaming at them but realized the futility of such action—if the Arbiter was causing him to hallucinate; there was no use in trying to communicate.

Almost at once he felt hands against his skin, pulling at his arms and legs, and the contact sent waves of agony through his body. His muscles tensed against the strain and he screamed over and over again, "No! No!" until his voice was hoarse and his throat stung. But still the hands grasped him and he heard voices crying his name. They sounded concerned—they always sounded concerned—and Jun worked to curl himself into a ball so tiny that they might forget he existed.

"Get away from him!" Chiharu screamed, and at once Shin, Shu, and Toma let go of Jun's arms and legs and watched as the boy drew himself closer to the pillar. His body shuddered and he rocked back and forth with his head cradled in his arms. It seemed to them that their companion had completely lost his mind and had been reduced to a mass of shivering, hyperventilating flesh.

"Stay away from me," Jun sobbed, oblivious to Chiharu's cries, "I gave you what you want! Leave me alone! Let me go! Kill me already!"

The Arbiter's words echoed their response in Jun's head. _I will not kill you_, he had promised, and Jun believed the oath unbreakable. The spirit had worked tirelessly for days to provide a fate worse than death, had supplied visions of terror and destruction until Jun could not close his eyes without watching someone die. Yet he could not bring himself to open his eyes for fear of what horrors he might face. The Arbiter had been so creative in the scenes that he developed, each one was worse than the last, and all of them involved the slaughter of the other five troopers.

But then he felt a different touch, something soft and smooth against the back of his neck, and though he initially recoiled he eventually gave in to its tenderness. He heard cooing in his ear, a voice that he recognized but could not name, and at length his muscles relaxed and his breathing slowed.

Chiharu had moved close to Jun, had wrapped her arms gently round his trembling frame, and whispered in his ear. "Everything is all right, Jun," she said, and watched the faces of the other troopers for her reassurance. "I don't know what you're seeing, but it's not real. We are all here, you're safe, you're alive, and there is no danger here."

The words repeated over and over until finally Jun peeked meekly at Chiharu's face through a space between his arms, a child sneaking a look at an imposing adult, and she offered him a smile and squeezed his hand firmly. He recognized her at once and was puzzled—she had never appeared in the hallucinations before, he was not even certain that the Arbiter knew what she looked or sounded like. He raised a hand to the back of his head and felt the spot where he had connected with the pillar—it was slick with very real blood—and then placed his bloodstained palm against the ground, where he scraped his fingers over the dirt until he had created deep grooves in the very real earth.

By now, Shin had moved back in and sat behind Jun, watching Chiharu for any signs that he should back away, and when she offered him a nod of approval he placed his hand firmly against Jun's shoulder. Jun looked at him, initially horrified, but then his expression softened and he looked about again, apparently grounded in reality. Then Jun pressed his forehead against his arm, burying his face out of sight.

"Everything is okay," Shin said. "Take your time."

Ϫ

Chiharu breathed deeply and looked between the five troopers with sympathy and understanding. The night prior had been more eventful than anyone had hoped for, and all of their efforts had gone toward pulling Jun from the nightmare in which he was been trapped. Chiharu had explained three times what she believed had happened, and again the others met her diagnosis with heavy skepticism and denial.

"It was a psychotic break," she repeated firmly. "His mind was divorced from reality."

"But how?" Ryo stammered, and his question echoed everyone's concern. Jun had always seemed so emotionally sound, even as a child, that none of the troopers could imagine that he could succumb to any form of insanity. But still, the image of Jun trembling and cowering against figures of his mind was burned into their minds. It unnerved them.

"I want to know what that bastard Arbiter did to him," Shu snapped.

Ryo and Toma exchanged knowing glances. They had heard from Chiharu how Jun reacted to his first hallucination, and the report sounded quite similar to what they had just seen. And Shin had said long before the warriors ever set out on their search that the Arbiter was likely planting ideas in Jun's mind. It was not a far stretch to assume that the spirit might also plant horrifying images.

"Keep in mind that he was terrified when he ran away," Shin reasoned. "He was afraid that we would hurt him for what he did to Nasté."

"It wouldn't be irrational to believe that the Arbiter used Jun's fear against him," Seiji continued in agreement. "What better way to compel someone to submit than by making them believe that their life is in danger."

"What better way to compel Jun to submit than by making him believe that _our_ lives are in danger," Toma grumbled astutely, and the other troopers could not help but agree. "Besides, it wasn't the prospect of his death that scared him. He was worried that we would be hurt, or that we would abandon him."

The troopers fell into silence then, contemplating the accuracy of Toma's observation. They had all seen how Jun had cried the night before. The boy had practically begged for death, and even prior to this episode he often spoke freely of the inevitability of his untimely demise. If any of the troopers had to describe Jun's attitude toward end of life issues they would have said 'comfortable'.

"Regardless," Ryo said finally, "whatever that spirit did, it played a number on Jun."

Indeed, Ryo's words were true. Even as he sat alone under the stairs Jun was working to convince himself that his salvation was real and that he was in no danger, but a nagging fear that something awful would happen tugged at the back of his mind. He had lost count of the number of times that he found comfort in what he saw, only to be surprised by some new and savage vision of death.

Jun could not rationalize why the troopers would care to rescue him. It seemed even by his reckoning that the last months had been an exhibition in terrible decisions which ultimately led him to the situation in which he presently sat, and try as he might he could not reconcile what had driven him to such complete idiocy. He was thankful that they had left him alone long enough to think.

With much effort Jun propped himself up on his elbows and reeled immediately against a sharp pain in his chest that he recognized as a cracked rib—it was not the first time he had suffered such an injury. He surveyed himself with a sigh and closed his eyes before pushing himself fully upright, and even then he was forced to steady himself by leaning against the nearest wooden beam. He knew that he was weak before he had even thought to stand up, there was no questioning that fact, but the warrior had never imagined that he would be so seriously debilitated by his long stay with the Arbiter.

When the world ceased its spinning he wrapped his arms round the pillar on which he rested and pulled himself shakily to his feet. His knees wobbled under his weight and when at last he looked down at himself he was startled and slightly embarrassed at the sight. As someone who took pride in his physical appearance there was no hope in hiding his emaciation. His muscles had begun to atrophy through disuse and starvation, and shadows of his skeleton were visible where a week before had been tone and mass. It was not a wonder that he was having difficulty keeping on his feet. He was far worse off than he had thought.

With a quiet swear Jun began making his way slowly toward the exit. All the while he thought of what he would say to the troopers when he saw them, whether or not he would address his behavior the night before, and how he would react to their comments about his condition. Before he had left them, before he had slapped Nasté, he had played everything off as routine, but now the stakes were much higher. He had to find some way to explain his behavior to his companions so that he didn't sound as insane as he felt.

By the time he reached the exit he felt his breaths coming with difficulty, and he rested against the broken frame and stared out at the group gathered around their campfire. His eyes would not focus against the brightness of the daylight but he was certain that they were speaking together. Their voices carried across the way quietly enough that Jun could not discern anything that they said, but he was sure that they were speaking about him. He looked at the ground and felt himself swoon, exhausted.

"Jun! You shouldn't be up!"

Jun could not hide his relief that Chiharu was safe and apparently concerned for him. He heard her frantic cries clearly, followed by the shuffle of countless feet, and then there were hands pressing against his body, supporting him where he stood. A glance right and Shu stared at him, obviously distressed, and to his left was Toma, who wore the same expression. He placed all his weight on their strong arms and closed his eyes, breathed deeply.

When next he opened his eyes Chiharu was kneeling before him and staring at him severely.

He grinned at her. "I told you I'd be back."

She stood at once, irate, and slapped him so hard that he fell full on into Shu's grasp.

"Whoa!" Toma cried, and he stepped forward to restrain the angry woman. "Calm down, he's wounded!"

"You idiot!" Chiharu cried. "What were you thinking, running off on your own like that! You should have known that there was danger! You should have known that you would be captured!"

Jun looked at her and shrugged meekly. "I didn't really care."

Chiharu was dumbstruck by Jun's nonchalance and she looked between Toma and Shu with a face full of confusion. "You didn't care," she said, her voice full of animosity.

"Do you want me to lie?" Jun spat in reply, and he stood as straight as he could and faced the girl angrily. "Because I'm a damned good liar. I can lie if you want me to."

She slapped him again, and Toma restrained her.

"Let's go take a seat," Shu suggested and did not wait for a response before he ushered Jun delicately to the fire. The boy practically collapsed between Ryo and Shin, and Shu hesitated for a moment. "I'll go find you something to put on; your clothes were pretty well destroyed," he said, and then moved at once to find Jun some clothing.

Jun was truly glad for the gesture; he had never felt so naked in all his life. The troopers stared at him dumbly, and when Chiharu sat across from him he felt her eyes boring into him, judging him. He regretted his flippant rejection of her concern and thought more than once about apologizing. But then Shu came back and dropped a fresh black jumper into his lap, and Jun pulled it over his head without reservation.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" Shin asked quietly. Apparently Jun's grimace as he dressed did not go unnoticed.

"I'm fine," Jun said dismissively, and stared resolutely at the ground, uncertain what he should say.

"Are you hungry?"

Now that the topic had been suggested Jun realized that he had not eaten in days, and his stomach ached with want. He looked at Shin, who grinned at him benevolently, and nodded before returning his gaze to the dirt. "But don't give me much," he said. "It's been what—a week? If I eat too much I'll get sick, I'll have no self-restraint when it gets down to food."

Shin patted Jun gently on the shoulder and rose to retrieve some sustenance. The group was silent until he returned moments later with Toma's pack in hand, and he placed the thing before Jun and watched as the boy rummaged through for whatever morsel he could find. Then the trooper of torrent took his seat and glanced expectantly at the others, none of whom were anxious to speak.

"I feel like I needed to have a fucking speech prepared," Jun said mutinously, nervous of the silence, and when he looked up from his meager meal he noted the surprised and angry expressions on the others' faces. Apparently his choice of words had not gone unnoticed either. "I mean, for god's sake, it's like you've never seen a wounded person before. What do you want from me, an apology? Well, I'm sorry I was being ruthlessly manipulated by a malevolent spirit bent on world domination. Are we happy now?"

Ryo covered his face with his hand, embarrassed, and Shin looked away from the boy entirely. Toma and Seiji glanced between Jun and Chiharu, judging her reaction to his words, and Shu joined Jun in admiring the dirt.

"You watch your mouth or I'll let you slap you again," said the kongo quietly, and Jun clenched his jaw in response. It was not often that Shu spoke so seriously. "There's no need for the attitude."

"Shu is right," Shin agreed. "You're out of line, and considering how much explaining you've got to do I'd recommend you mind what you say. To all of us."

There was sudden heat radiating from Jun's stomach and he wondered whether he felt regret or anxiety. His emotions were muddled and if he was honest with himself he knew that he could not control what he said. It was as if the filter between his mind and his mouth had been removed absolutely; everything he thought came out in its purest form before he could think twice about it.

"What do you want me to say, then?"

"Let's start small," Seiji offered after a moment of contemplation. "What do you need to get back to health?"

It was a question that Jun was not prepared to answer. He had expected to be bombarded with questions about how he had been captured, why he ran away to begin with, why he had struck Nasté, and what had motivated him to leave Chiharu behind. The idea of the troopers being concerned for his physical well-being was utterly unexpected.

"I—I don't know," stammered the shadow, and he spoke very quietly thereafter. "Food, shelter, water."

"What do you need to talk about?" Seiji continued.

Jun felt a lump well in his throat and he looked away from Seiji's icy gaze. It was his turn to be embarrassed and surprised by a wave of emotion. "Nothing," he said at length and hoped that the troopers could not hear the quiver in his voice. "I'm fine."

Seiji exchanged a look with the others that asked if he should pursue the point any further. All eyes turned to Ryo, and the wildfire shook his head. _Not now_, he was saying. There would be time for that kind of inquiry later on; Jun would talk about what had happened when he was ready to talk.

"Where is my kanji orb?" Jun asked.

"We had to get rid of it," Toma replied firmly. "We were overwhelmed by enemies while searching for you, and if we hadn't thrown it aside there's no doubt in my mind that Shin would be dead."

The torrent flushed a bit and nodded, though Jun was not looking at him. Instead the warrior of shadow had turned a furious glare the tenku's way, and Toma felt himself cowering against it.

"You did what?" said Jun, and his voice teetered on the fine line between severe anger and mania.

"We had no choice," Shu said, coming immediately to Toma's defense. "We got rid of it in the tower."

"No choice?" Jun laughed coldly, maniacally. "No choice? Do you have any idea what the implications of your _no choice_ are? Any idea at all?"

Shin and Ryo looked at each other, alarmed by Jun's sudden madness. They readied themselves to restrain him, and when Shin laid a delicate hand on Jun's shoulder he could feel the boy trembling violently beneath his touch. But rather than exploding at the others as was expected, Jun returned his gaze to the ground and looked mortified.

"I want to go home," he said, bordering tears once more. "I want to apologize to Nasté."

"We can't go home yet," Shin replied. "Not until we've gotten rid of the Arbiter and gotten your kanji orb back. Then we'll all go back and talk to Nasté."

Jun looked so coldly at Shin that the torrent removed his hand from Jun's shoulder. "No, we won't," he said. "We won't all go back."


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Dammit, this thing needs an ending. I'm sorry I fell off the bandwagon. Summer vacation for the win. Read, review if you're still out there. In other news, I'm considering rewriting this story like I did for CoS. Contemplation. What do you think of an overhaul?

By evening the headaches had started, and Jun was relegated to lying helplessly beneath the stairwell where he had waked less than a day before. It had seemed for a time that the youngest trooper had been making strides toward recovery—he spent an hour after lunch testing the strength of his atrophied muscles, feeling pleasantly surprised that things were not as bad as they seemed on the surface—but that had ended when he collapsed suddenly, clutching his head and writhing. In the moment he could not describe the pain, he could not produce even the simplest of words, and every attempt he had made at articulating what was wrong came out as a helpless squeak.

Most of the pain lasted no more than half an hour and though it decreased in intensity it never faded altogether. By dusk Jun was able to speak and uncover his eyes. The whole time Chiharu never left his side, and Seiji was present for most of the ordeal, but by the time he was ready to explain what he had felt he was surrounded by the concerned faces of friends that did as much to unnerve him as they did to reassure him.

"It's throbbing," Jun said quietly as he pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. "That's all right now, but earlier it was easily the worst pain I've ever experienced. It was like someone was shoving a hot knife in my eye and twisting it around." He shivered slightly, a reaction that did not go unnoticed. "I—I'm sorry to worry you all, I don't know what happened."

If the others were honest with themselves, they had no idea either.

"Either way, I want you to stay down for a while," Chiharu ordered. "I thought you were stroking out or something, I don't want to run the risk of you hurting yourself any more than you already have."

Initially Jun had been angry at the order, but recognized that it was for his own good and Chiharu genuinely meant well. He accepted her command with little hesitation, took dinner beneath the steps, and grudgingly agreed to allow Shin and Chiharau to monitor him as he slept.

The two came and went in shifts throughout the night, reporting to Jun the tentative plans that Ryo, Seiji, Toma, and Shu were making by the campfire. The troopers were planning to sit tight until Jun could get back on his feet, at which point they would raid the spire and free the captives that Ryo and Seiji had found. That was all Jun heard of the briefing, however; he was too preoccupied by the constant dull ache in his head and had to struggle not to panic any time Shin entered the room. Despite his best efforts to control his emotions he still felt a pervasive fear, an anxiety that twisted his gut and warped his sense of safety. More, he was afraid for whatever was happening to him and afraid that he might be summoned by the Arbiter at any minute.

Sleep came in fitful bursts, never restful, and several times Jun woke to see Chiharu or Shin staring at him with deep concern. Eventually he gave up on the venture altogether, deciding much to the chagrin of his keepers that he would sleep whenever his body forced him to and no sooner. His dreams had been full of the Arbiter and his many methods of torture, both psychological and physical, and Jun knew that if his mind was capable of producing dreams they would be terrifying. Intrepid as he tried to be, there was no way he could relive the horrors he had experienced without complete breakdown. He had been there all too recently.

"At what point are you going to explain what's going through your mind?" asked Shin in the predawn hours as Jun was in the midst of picking one of the scabs developing on the burns on his chest.

"What do you want to know?" replied Jun candidly, but he did not look up. Truth be told he had been waiting for someone to ask him to explain. He had scarcely been able to understand what had happened himself, and he wondered if perhaps he explained it to someone else his experiences would become clear.

"What do you want to tell me?"

"I'm terrified."

Jun examined Shin's expression carefully after the admission, reading it for signs of judgment. There was nothing. Not even eye contact. The warrior of water simply stared ahead, his eyes locked on some point in the distance.

"As long as the Arbiter has my kanji orb he can summon me at will. Did you know that?" Jun continued quietly. "That's how he got me to Nasté's that night; he manipulated me into showing up there. Those four men that were with me—" Jun choked on the final word, remembering the way that they had died. "They were manipulated as well."

This drew Shin's undivided attention, and he looked to Jun with a blank expression, nonjudgmental.

"I resisted the Arbiter then," Jun said. "I don't know how I did it, but it was just the one time. I was so scared. It was when I told you that he had taken me, and then he pulled me back. When he pulled me back he—" Jun removed his hand from the scab and regarded his chest achingly. The blisters from the Arbiter's white hot energy bolt had just begun the process of healing; the skin was still ugly and rough and tender. He swallowed hard, glanced at Shin shyly, and then returned his eyes to the ground. "All of the men that were with me that night were struck dead on the spot. It was like he melted them, and by the time it was said and done all that remained of them was this putrid pool of…body… Flesh and bones and blood. That was all. _Meat_."

Shin did not know what to say but knew that the story could not go without response. "Are you okay?"

At once the torrent recognized how stupid the question sounded, but Jun seemed not to mind. He shrugged. "I still think about them sometimes. Whenever I close my eyes I see them, or some variation of them. Once in a while it's you, and Ryo and Toma and the others. The Arbiter made me see a lot of horrible things and the images won't get out of my head. I don't know how to get them out. Any time one of you guys sneaks up on me or I wake up and you're there I have to fight against panic. And then when the panic is gone I get angry, always angry, I don't know how to get rid of it. I hate myself for acting like a child—I can't control myself. The emotions just won't stop; they're beating at the inside of my head like machine gun fire, _bang bang bang_ all back to back to back, one after the other. I feel like I'm going insane."

By the end of the monologue Jun's voice was quavering, teetering again on the edge of madness, and his hands had once again found their way to his head.

"Jun?" Shin said quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Are you all right?"

"This damned headache won't go away," he said with a wince, his voice full of fear and frustration, and Shin recognized the glisten of wetness on the boy's face. "It's killing me—"

Jun doubled over, face between his knees and clutching his head in his hands. He trembled so violently that his teeth chattered. He tried suppressing one cry that came out regardless of his efforts, sounding more as a sob than an expression of pain, and then Shin was there as always, hands pressed firmly on Jun's back in the only comforting gesture he could think of.

"Do I need to get Chiharu?" Shin asked and Jun shook his head. "Are you going to faint?"

Again Jun shook his head. He hadn't even understood what Shin had asked; he only knew to respond in the negative. His ears were ringing, head was swimming, and even when he closed his eyes all he could see was blinding white light. Deep in the recesses of his mind he felt an odd compulsion to move but could not tell for certain what it was, and the sensation soon faded against an overwhelming wall of self-pity and self-loathing and rage. He tried to speak and failed, he felt Shin press his hands more firmly against his shivering body, and he focused on simply breathing. If he could get his body under control he could suppress the pain.

Two minutes later Jun was unconscious.

Ϫ

The Arbiter fumed. He clutched the fractured kanji orb in his hand, holding it so tightly that it was small wonder it did not shatter. Since the loss of the boy he had been able to summon forth the armor with ease, but could not summon Jun to his side even after many forceful attempts. There had been no response at all, as though the connections between the armor and those bound to it had been completely severed, and he could find no explanation.

So the grand spirit had humbled himself enough to seek reasoning from the one person he had hoped not to need: The Guardian of Souls.

The benevolent spirit sat on a comfortable chair in a small but well-furnished cell, its hands folded in its lap and a blank expression on its face. The Guardian seemed no worse for the wear, considering the length of his imprisonment, but still the Arbiter worried that the Guardian would hesitate to provide any information after its maltreatment.

"Why won't the shade come to my command?" demanded the Arbiter, rolling the kanji orb in his palm.

The Guardian shrugged, noncommittal. "There is no good explanation to come from the information you've provided. If the boy is alive and unharmed he should be forced to heed the call."

The Arbiter glared at his counterpart scornfully. He had made neither mention of the psychological torture to which Jun had been submitted, nor the weakness of his body upon his escape. He had not been concerned with such things because he believed that as long as Jun was _alive_ he could be summoned through the power of the orb.

"What if the boy was harmed?"

"As long as he exists in physical form he should respond in some way," the Guardian replied. "You should have sent him to me for evaluation prior to joining yourself to the armor."

"That's none of your concern."

The Guardian shrugged. "The boy as a whole is my concern. He is my chosen, after all, and I can't let him die until the moment is right. You know that."

"What would cause him to disregard the summons?" The Arbiter said, his anger renewed. There could be no deviating from the topic, not now.

"The call is telepathy," said the Guardian. "The only reason that he would not receive it and would not respond to it was if there was some blockage. An inhibition, static, something keeping his mind from receiving the message."

It had been so long since the Arbiter had inhabited a physical body that he could scarcely recall the sensation of emotion. Still, in retrospect he could imagine the hell that he had wrought on his prisoner and regretted it in no small capacity. The last time he had seen the boy Jun had been almost completely unintelligible, mumbling and scarcely realizing that the Arbiter had even been present. He had not responded to questions and any time he was touched Jun would recoil frantically. Could it be that there had been nothing left?

"How easy would it be to ruin him?"

Again the Guardian shrugged. "Mortals have a reputation for weakness."

The Arbiter cursed, turned, and left the cell, slamming and locking the doorway behind him. He had no choice now but to find the boy manually, but until such a time as the search was successful he would simply have to continue bombarding him with commands. With luck, something would get through.

Ϫ

"We can't just keep sitting here," Ryo said hotly. "Eventually the foot soldiers will get over their fear of this place and when they do we're going to be swarmed."

"But we can't go anywhere," Toma replied, and he looked to the other troopers gathered around the campfire for support. Only Shin nodded his approval. Shu and Seiji made no move to indicate who they supported, if anyone.

"Jun is in no condition to go anywhere," Shin added. "He can barely get to his feet—not two hours ago I had to help him go to the bathroom. He's a wreck."

Ryo furrowed his brow and glanced toward the ruined stairwell where Jun had been all but incapacitated for two days. Shin had explained that the cause of the problem was headaches, but if the others were left to judge by the occasional cries of pain and distress they would have concluded that something much worse was wrong. More than once they had heard the boy yelling incoherently, madly, which was even more disturbing than the sounds of agony.

"What do we do, then?" Ryo asked, genuinely at a loss.

Shin shrugged. "I don't know. Sit tight and hope that Jun continues fighting off the Arbiters advances, I guess. Hope he gets stronger."

"Not to sound rude, but that's a horrible idea," Shu remarked. "If we sit around and do nothing then nothing gets done. Simple as that."

"And what do you suggest we do?" Seiji asked.

"I think we ought to go find the Arbiter and get rid of him."

Shin scoffed, upset. "We can't! I've already explained that as long as Jun is so intimately connected to the spirit and the armor we can't know what will happen if we kill the Arbiter."

"Has anyone asked Jun what he thinks we ought to do?" said Toma wisely. "Seems to me that he should have some say in the decision."

All eyes turned to Shin and he shrugged. "I haven't been able to get a lot out of him. I can try to talk to him again if he's awake, but the last few times I've tried for conversation he just works himself up to hysteria."

Shin's reluctance was not unfounded. Jun's episodes had been intense, though during the space between the boy could speak lucidly. All the same he was prone to panic at the slightest insecurity and drive himself back to pain. It was difficult to ask him questions, so much so that Shin had nearly given up. He had left the task of caring for the wounded warrior to Chiharu, who was infinitely more patient and more of a comfort to Jun than any of the troopers could hope to be.

Chiharu had found that the key to alleviating Jun's stress was to keep his mind away from his current predicament. As a result the two of them had spent hours talking about mundane things. Most of the conversation revolved around school and work, though Chiharu had taken time to talk to Jun about her family, her future hopes, and her past. In return, Jun explained in full detail how he had become involved with the armors and the story behind Arago's initial invasion.

If anything the conversation had seemed to lighten Jun's spirits, and he had laughed openly several times.

"I can see why you'd want to keep to yourself," Chiharu said coolly after the conversation had died down. "But all the same it's a little bit sad. You're a good guy."

Jun smiled and shifted positions, propped himself up against one of the support beams. "I'm glad I've explained myself sufficiently for you."

"All you had to do was tell me you were a superhero."

Jun laughed at that.

"I'm being serious!" Chiharu protested, but she was laughing as well. "If I had known that you were busy saving the world I would have left you alone!"

"Well now you know, and you're still bugging me."

Chiharu blushed and leaned back. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

The two fell into comfortable silence that lasted a while, and it seemed for a time that the two were content with the company alone. After a time Jun's expression changed, and he seemed forlorn, contemplative, and Chiharu touched a hand to his shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm sorry that I underestimated you," Jun said. "I didn't know that someone outside of…_this_…could ever understand what it's like to be involved with armors and demons and sorcerers."

"Well, if it makes you feel better I'm still not sure I quite understand," Chiharu replied, and she moved close to Jun. "But the good thing is that it doesn't really matter, does it? You're still you, regardless of whether or not you've got armor, aren't you? And I like who you are."

Jun didn't know what to say.

"What? Why is that so hard for you to believe?" Chiharu asked. "Look at me, silly!"

Jun looked at her sheepishly. She was closer to him than before, so close that he could smell her hair, a mix of sweat and the remnants of expensive shampoo. Immediately he felt self conscious: If she had begun to show signs of filth he couldn't imagine how he must have smelled after all he'd been through.

"I'm sorry if I smell bad," he stammered dumbly, feeling awkward and uncertain.

She kissed him, and everything stopped. In a moment all the pain was gone, the fear, the nether realm, lost in _her_. He pressed into her, felt his heartbeat speed up, felt the sweet rush of adrenaline. This was what he needed to forget. This was what he needed to block it all out.

A year of tension was broken.

He felt his hands on him, pressed against his stomach, pressed against his face, exploring. All it served was to draw him in. How long had it been since he had last felt this way, he wondered, how long since he'd taken the time to focus on a girl? Too long…and now was as good a time as any.

Endorphins granted him enough strength to pull her atop him. His hands crept around her waist, up her back, holding her in place.

Neither noticed that Shin had entered their space.

"You have _got_ to be joking me."

Chiharu jumped with a start, pressed her hand against Jun's chest, and Jun cried out and winced in sudden pain, clutching at the place where his shirt had pressed into the wounds. He couldn't bring himself to look at Shin, both for shame and agony, but Chiharu stared at him doe-eyed and horrified, until she realized that Jun was hurt.

"Oh, God! I'm sorry," she cried and practically fell from Jun's lap. "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Shin said, irritated. "Sorry to interrupt your procreation, but I need to speak to Jun. Alone. Why don't you go get some air, it seems a little hot in here."

Chiharu nodded and stood, made her way to the exit while keeping as much space between herself and Shin as she possibly could. When she was gone Shin rounded on Jun angrily.

"Nasté said that you had a reputation as a bit of a man-whore," he said, "and it's not a wonder why. Are you even capable of being around a girl without wanting to—"

"I'm sorry," Jun replied, embarrassed. "I don't know what came over me. She started it, I just—couldn't stop?"

Shin waved the stammering explanation away. "We have pressing issues. We need a plan." He paused and examined Jun closely. "Are you okay? How is your head?"

"I had honestly forgotten all about it," Jun replied. "Right now it's all quiet."

"Good to know. All you need to clear your mind is a girl."

Jun glared at Shin, and the warrior of water knew he had crossed a line.

"At any rate, I need your input. We're a bunch of sitting ducks here, we have to move, but we're not sure where to go or what to do. Our original plan won't work, not with you in your condition. There's no way we can storm the spire and take the Arbiter down. We don't know how to proceed, and Toma suggested that someone come get your opinion."

Jun seemed momentarily contemplative, but responded almost immediately. "I need to find the Guardian of Souls. He's the Arbiter's counterpart, a good spirit, he's helpful. I met him once—well once that I remember—and he advised me about the use of the armor. I think he healed me."

"Where is he?"

Jun shook his head. "I don't know. The Arbiter told me that he had gotten rid of him. But I don't think the Guardian is dead—you can't kill a spirit, can you? They're already dead."

Shin sighed. "Then how do you suggest we find him?"

"He came to me," Jun explained. "A year ago, when you were trapped in the spire. I was fighting one of the Arbiter's henchmen and fell into a pool of…_stuff_. I don't know. Thick liquid, I don't know what it was. But I think I drowned. And I think that the Guardian brought me back."

This was a story Shin had not heard before, and he found himself intrigued. He knew that Jun had gone through quite the ordeal during his rescue efforts, but for him to have died and come back was entirely new.

"So what you're telling me is that you've got to die before this thing will come out?"

Jun shrugged. He recalled his last encounter with the Guardian, when the spirit had explained his saving Jun's life once before, when he was a child, when his parents died. Indeed it seemed that the only way to lure the Guardian out was to flirt with death.

"You're right," Jun said. "That's a stupid idea. I feel okay. I've felt okay for a couple of hours now. Maybe the Arbiter has given up trying to get in my head. I don't hear him calling any more. Maybe I've just got to be emotional as hell to block him out. I'll be okay. Let's go track him down."

Shin leaned against a support beam and crossed his arms. "You're sure you're not planning anything stupid or irresponsible? Nothing heroic?"

Jun shook his head, though a plot was beginning to form in the back of his mind. "I'm sure."


End file.
